The  Higfher  Education 


George  Trumbull  Ladd 


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ESSAYS 


ON 


THE   HIGHER  EDUCATION 


ESSAYS 


ON 


THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 


BY 


GEORGE   TRUMBULL  LADD 


FROFESSOB    OF    PHILOSOPHY    IN    YALE    UNIVEB8ITT 


Students  Mhr^,ry 


Santa  Barbara,  California 


NEW  YORK^£^ 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1899 


Copyright,  1899, 
Bt  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


r 


KttiiJttsitg  P«g0 : 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


The  four  essays  which  are  now  gathered  into 
this  volume  were  originally  written  for  different 
audiences,  and  have  already  been  published  in 
different  magazines.  The  paper  on  "  The  Devel- 
opment of  the  American  University"  was  read 
before  the  "  Round  Table  "  of  Boston,  and  that  on 
"The  Place  of  the  Fitting-School  in  American 
Education  "  before  the  New  England  Association 
of  Colleges  and  Preparatory  Schools.  A  request 
from  the  editors  of  the  "Andover  Review"  to 
reply  to  the  presentation,  made  by  a  friend  and 
colleague,  of  another  system  of  higher  education 
than  that  of  which  I  was  the  chosen  advocate,  led 
to  the  article  on  "  Education,  New  and  Old. "  The 
occasion  of  its  production,  therefore,  accounts  for 
the  more  special  and  polemical  character  of  the 
third  essay.  The  address  on  "The  Essentials  of 
a  Modern  Liberal  Education "  was  delivered  be- 
fore the  Association  of  the  Alumni  of  Western 
Reserve  University  at  the  Commencement  of  1895. 
All  four  of  these  essays  are  here  published  with 
very  few  and  unimportant  verbal  changes. 


VI  PREFACE 

Since  the  first  three  of  these  essays  were  written 
at  a  period  of  more  than  ten  years  ago,  they  con- 
tain many  particulars  of  statement  which  would 
need  modification  if  revised  in  view  of  later  facts, 
and  some  particulars  of  opinion  which  I  should 
now  express  in  a  different  way.  It  is  gratifying 
to  find  that  certain  suggestions  made  in  them  as 
to  possible  remedies  for  then  existing  evils  and 
deficiencies  have  been  adopted  and  more  or  less 
successfully  carried  out.  It  is  also  a  cause  for 
hope  that  some  of  the  mists  arising  from  the  first 
thawing  of  the  fields  congealed  by  long  continued 
customs  and  traditions  have  begun  to  clear  away ; 
so  that  a  more  judicious  estimate  of  the  path 
which  lies  behind  us  in  educational  matters  and 
of  the  lines  of  educational  progress  in  the  nearer 
future,  can  be  more  easily  attained.  But  he  cer- 
tainly overestimates  the  assured  and  thoroughly 
well  proven  value  of  much  that  is  "  new  "  in  edu- 
cation, and  also  underestimates  the  numerous 
puzzling  problems  which  remain  to  be  solved,  the 
practical  difficulties  still  to  be  overcome,  who 
regards  the  permanent  courses  of  the  more  popular 
or  of  the  higher  education  in  this  country  as  by 
any  means  clearly  marked  out. 

The  enthusiastic  advocate  of  what  is  new  in 
educational  ideas  —  as  to  subjects,  methods,  cur- 
ricula, organization,  etc. — regards  it  as  highly 
unfortunate  that  institutions  are  not  so  plastic,  so 


PREFACE  VU 

easy  to  change,  as  are  ideas.  The  man  who  is 
wise  in  practical  affairs,  and  profound  in  his  re- 
flections upon  the  truths  of  history,  knows  that, 
on  the  contrary,  this  abiding  and  relatively  stable 
character  of  the  institutional  expression  of  ideas 
is  the  fortunate  thing  about  educational,  as  about 
other  forms  of  progress.  Most  fortunate  of  all  are 
those  institutions  which  change  just  fast  and  far 
enough  to  conserve  the  priceless  lessons  of  the 
past,  while  unfolding  constantly  to  receive  the 
suggestions  of  the  better  time  coming. 

It  is  not,  then,  because  any  of  the  details  of 
opinion  expressed  in  these  essays  are  regarded  as 
a  finality  that  1  have  thought  it  possibly  worth 
while  to  publish  them.  As  respects  these  very 
details  I  should  still  be  unwilling  to  commit  my- 
self unalterably  to  any  of  the  current  conflicting 
opinions.  And  I  have  already  indicated  that  the 
events  of  the  last  decade  have  modified,  in  ways 
which  need  not  at  present  be  discussed  or  even 
noted,  what  was  said  upon  various  points  before 
the  original  hearers  of  these  essays.  But  if  they 
possess  any  value  sufiicient  to  justify  calling  at- 
tention to  them  again,  collectively  and  in  this 
unobtrusive  way,  it  is  because  they  all  intend  to 
emphasize  the  three  following  truths :  First,  there 
are  some  settled  and  permanent  principles  which 
belong  to  all  educational  systems,  in  all  times; 
and  we  may  know  what  these  principles  are.    But, 


Viu  PREFACE 

second,  every  age,  and  every  country,  has  its  own 
problems  which  concern  the  actual  application  of 
these  unchanging  principles,  in  an  institutional 
way^  to  its  own  demands  and  necessities.  Every 
age  is  "modern,"  in  its  own  thought;  but  the 
rapidity  of  the  current  changes,  and  the  vastness 
of  the  forces  at  work,  create  for  us  some  especially 
pressing  demands  and  peculiarly  hard  necessities. 
And,  third,  nothing  but  practical  wisdom  —  a  com- 
bination of  knowledge  of  the  values  involved  in 
the  different  studies  and  disciplines  with  a  gen- 
erous and  sympathetic  spirit  toward  each,  and  tact 
and  patience  in  dealing  with  details  —  will  solve 
for  us,  in  this  country  and  to-day,  our  educational 
problems. 

GEORGE  TRUMBULL  LADD. 

Yale  University, 

January,  1899. 


CONTENTS 


Page 
I.   The  Development  of  the  American 

University 3-49 

n.   The  Place  of  the  Fitting  School  in 

American  Education       ....  53-72 

III.  Education,  New  and  Old  ....  75-108 

IV.  A  Modern  Liberal  Education     .     .  111-142 


THE  DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE 
AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 


^•, 


:^ 


« 


ESSAYS 
ON   THE   HIGHER   EDUCATION 


^o 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
UNIVERSITY 

Neither  of  the  two  most  attractive  and  promis- 
ing methods  which  ordinarily  lie  open  for  the  dis- 
cussion of  a  question  like  this,  can  in  the  present 
instance  be  followed  exclusively.  These  two 
methods  may  be  styled  the  descriptive,  or  histori- 
cal, and  the  speculative,  or  ideal.  By  following 
the  first  method  one  would  be  led  to  state  what  the 
university  has  been  and  is  in  this  country,  and  in 
other  parts  of  the  world  whose  civilization  most 
nearly  resembles  our  own ;  and  then  to  show  by 
what  modifications  the  institution,  as  it  now  exists, 
might  be  made  what  it  should  be.  Even  in  this 
way,  however,  it  is  plain  that  one  would  have  to 
set  up  some  ideal  standard,  in  accordance  with 
which  any  proposed  modifications  should  take 
place.  In  following  the  second  method  one  might 
feel  emboldened  at  once  to  state  what  the  preva- 


v» 


4  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

lent  form  of  the  university  ought  to  be ;  but  one 
would  then  have  to  show  how  our  existing  educa- 
tional institutions  may  be  changed  in  order  to 
bring  them  into  conformity  with  such  an  ideal 
standard. 

Now,  in  this  country,  up  to  the  present  time, 
there  has  existed  no  form  of  an  educational  insti- 
tution which  we  can  call  "  the  American  university," 
if  by  this  term  we  intend  to  designate  something 
other  and  higher  than  "  the  American  college," 
with  its  possible  attachment  of  one  or  more  pro- 
fessional schools.  Any  one  possessed  of  the  requi- 
site information  knows  at  once  what  is  meant  by  the 
university  of  France,  the  English  universities,  or  a 
German  university;  but  no  one  can  become  so 
conversant  with  facts  as  to  tell  what  an  American 
university  is.  It  would  by  no  means  be  fair,  how- 
ever, to  sum  up  the  history  of  the  development  of 
this  institution  with  the  curt  sentence:  "There 
are  no  universities  in  America."  To  be  sure,  it 
is  hardly  twenty  years  since  the  rector  of  Lincoln 
College,  Oxford  (Mark  Pattison),  wrote:  "In 
America  scientific  culture  has  never  been  intro- 
duced. It  has  no  universities  such  as  we  under- 
stand by  the  term."  But  the  same  writer  speaks 
of  Yale  University  as  "stated  to  be  a  poor  and 
hard-worked  seminary,"  and  marvels  at  the  extent 
and  variety  of  its  required  curriculum.  Since  Mr. 
Pattison's  writing,  a  large  number  of  schools  have 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  6 

sprung  up  in  our  West,  some  private  and  some 
state  institutions,  most  of  which  have  but  veiled 
thinly  over  their  deficiencies  in  scientific  quality, 
equipment,  and  force  and  aim  in  teaching,  by  put- 
ting on  the  title  of  "  university."  Yale  (and,  to  a 
greater  extent,  Harvard)  has  changed  rapidly  in 
the  effort  to  validate  this  title.  Johns  Hopkins 
has  made  a  noble  start  toward  the  realization  of  a 
high  ideal,  and  various  other  institutions  have 
given  notice  of  their  claims  to  be,  or  intentions  to 
become,  genuine  universities.  Still,  it  is  scarcely 
less  true  than  it  was  a  score  of  years  ago  that,  al- 
though there  may  be  universities  in  America,  no 
one  can  tell  what  an  American  university  is. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  lack  of  theory 
and  counsel  as  to  the  important  inquiry,  what  the 
American  university  should  be.  Perhaps  it  would 
not  be  unfair  to  say  that,  as  a  rule,  the  less  the 
amount  of  study  which  a  man  has  given  to  the 
many  difficult  problems  that  enter  into  the  devel- 
opment of  the  highest-class  educational  institutions 
in  this  country,  the  prompter  and  more  certain  is 
his  response  to  this  inquiry.  Men  who  have  a 
million  or  two  of  money,  and  who,  from  the  train- 
ing of  their  lives,  have  come  to  think  all  things  — 
save  heaven,  and  scarcely  save  that  —  purchasable 
with  so  goodly  a  sum,  are  peculiarly  tempted  to  try 
the  experiment  of  founding  and  calling  by  their 
name  the  one  genuine  and  great  American  univer- 


6  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

sity.  If  the  general  theory  of  the  purchasableness 
of  all  things  which  enter  into  a  university  were 
true,  it  would  still  have  to  be  said  that  the  ordi- 
nary estimate  of  the  amount  required  is  inadequate. 
But  surely,  as  long  as  the  primary  and  indispens- 
able prerequisite  of  a  genuine  and  great  university, 
wherever  under  the  sky  it  may  be  located,  is  a  body 
of  teachers  and  pupils  rightly  trained,  and  united 
and  animated  by  the  right  spirit,  the  actual  result 
attainable  by  merely  giving  large  sums  of  money 
will  not  fulfil  a  worthy  ideal. 

The  speculative  method,  when  employed  by  per- 
sons informed  in  the  principles  and  practice  of 
education,  is,  of  course,  far  safer  and  more  valuable 
than  when  employed  by  the  ignorant.  Yet  I  can 
never  forget  that  institutions,  unlike  systems  of 
abstract  truth,  are  not  wisely  treated  in  the  purely 
speculative  way,  A  university  is,  at  most,  an 
institution;  it  is  a  complicated  system  of  means 
through  which  one  set  of  persons  operates  upon 
another  set  of  persons  for  the  accomplishment  of 
certain  ends.  But  every  means  must  afford  an 
answer  to  four  inquiries  :  Out  of  what  material  can 
it  be  constituted  ?  Who  or  what  is  to  use  it  ? 
Upon  whom  or  upon  what  is  it  to  be  used  ?  For 
what  end  is  it  to  be  used  ?  To  inquire  as  to  what 
the  American  philosophy  should  be,  savors  of  irra- 
tionality ;  and  the  inquiry  would  have  the  same 
savor  if  it  took  the  form.  What  should  the  Scottish, 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  7 

or  French,  or  German,  or  Sandwich-Islands  phi- 
losophy be  ?  For  the  only  answer  to  all  these 
inquiries  is  that  philosophy  is  not  a  matter  for 
adjustment,  as  a  means,  to  national  requirements, 
but  every  nation  and  individual  that  cultivates 
philosophy  should  aim  at  having  a  true  philosophy. 
On  the  contrary,  the  inquiry,  "  What  should  the 
American  university  be  ? "  is  not  an  irrational 
inquiry,  for  it  is  an  inquiry  after  the  best  means 
to  an  end.  For  the  same  reason  it  cannot  be  raised 
and  answered  as  a  purely  speculative  inquiry ; 
since  the  nature  of  the  material  out  of  which  the 
American  university  must  be  constituted,  if  it  is 
constituted  at  all,  imposes  upon  every  ideal  some 
very  hard  and  unavoidable  limitations. 

Accordingly,  I  shall  abstain  as  carefully  from 
speculating  about  an  unattainable  ideal  as  from 
describing  a  nonentity.  Since  neither  the  histori- 
cal nor  the  speculative  method  can  be  pursued  ex- 
clusively to  their  final  results,  let  us  be  content  to 
go  only  a  little  way  into  the  subject  by  the  use  of 
both  methods.  For  although  there  is  no  history, 
as  yet,  of  the  development  of  the  American  univer- 
sity, there  are  colleges  and  professional  schools  and 
other  institutions  of  the  so-called  higher  learning 
in  this  country,  and  all  these  institutions  have  a 
tolerably  rich  and  instructive  history.  K  we  are 
ever  to  attain  a  distinctive  university  education, 
such  as  can  be  properly  called  "  American,"  these 


8  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

institutions,  their  existing  and  prospective  structure 
and  work,  must  be  chiefly  taken  into  our  account, 
for  they  furnish  the  material  from  which,  and  the 
conditions  on  which,  the  development  of  the  univer- 
sity must,  for  the  most  part,  take  place.  If  this 
material  and  these  conditions  are  dealt  with  ill, 
no  amount  of  talk  and  enthusiasm  will  save  us 
from  pursuing  an  unattainable  or  an  unworthy 
ideal. 

One  word  more  should  be  premised  upon  this 
point.  The  American  university  must  be  developed 
on  its  own  soil,  and  out  of  the  existing  materials, 
and  under  the  existing  conditions.  It  cannot  be 
imported,  or  constructed  de  novo,  as  it  were,  from 
the  brain  and  purse  of  any  one  man,  or  of  any  small 
number  of  men.  "  The  University  of  Oxford,"  says 
Mr.  Maxwell  Lyte,  "  did  not  spring  into  being  in 
any  particular  year,  or  at  the  bidding  of  any  par- 
ticular founder ;  it  was  not  established  by  any 
formal  charter  of  incorporation."  Particular  insti- 
tutions bearing  the  name  of  universities  may,  of 
course,  be  founded  in  this  country  in  a  particular 
year,  and  at  the  bidding  of  a  particular  founder. 
But  these  will  not  give  us  the  true  norm  or  type. 
This  will  come  only  as  the  result  of  a  living  de- 
velopment. 

Nor  can  I  believe  that  it  will  be  possible  to  create 
our  university  by  using  large  importations  of  fin- 
ished foreign  goods.      Would  that  the   German 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  9 

model  might  furnish  us  certain  of  the  more  impor- 
tant and  vital  factors  of  the  ideal  toward  which  we 
resolve  to  grow !  Yet  the  proposal  at  once  to  im- 
port largely  from  the  methods  and  constitution  of 
the  German  university  would  be  likely  to  result  in 
failure.  There  are  many  features  of  the  University 
as  already  established  in  Germany  which  we  should 
not  wish  to  imitate  if  we  could.  The  more  impor- 
tant commendable  factors  —  the  thorough  second- 
ary education  of  those  who  matriculate,  the  scientific 
character  of  the  teachers  and  the  scientific  and  free 
quality  of  their  teaching,  the  relative  disregard  for 
what  we  incline  so  much  to  overestimate,  namely, 
the  pursuits  that  fit  directly  for  some  form  of  prac- 
tical life  (^Broditudieii)  —  we  can  gain  only  in  time 
and  by  paying  the  price  for  them.  Many  things  in 
the  French  university  system,  also,  and  especially 
what  Matthew  Arnold  calls  "too  much  requiring 
of  authorizations  before  a  man  may  stir,"  unfit  it 
to  be  our  model.  Nor  can  we  think  of  taking  very 
freely  and  directly  from  those  great  English  insti- 
tutions of  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  to  which  we 
should  most  naturally  look  for  our  models.  The 
expensive  character  of  the  education  they  impart, 
the  dominance  of  the  tutorial  system  in  their  col- 
leges to  the  detriment  of  the  university,  the  large 
amount  of  sinecurism  which  they  permit  and  en- 
courage, the  distinction  between  "  pass "  and 
"  honor "    examinations,  and    between    the    one- 


10  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

quarter  who  come  to  study  and  win  prizes  and  the 
three-quarters  who  come  chiefly  to  gain  the  social 
distinction  of  a  degree, — prevent  our  imitating 
them.  As  to  the  Scotch  universities,  I  cannot 
avoid  thinking  that  following  them  is  most  of  all  to 
be  deprecated.  For  this  reason  it  should  not  escape 
our  notice  that  certain  modifications  now  taking 
place  in  the  constitution  and  working  of  the  Amer- 
ican college  are  liable  to  encourage  in  this  country 
some  of  the  worst  features  of  the  Scotch  universi- 
ties. At  present,  however,  it  is  safely  within  the 
limits  of  truth  to  say  that  the  degree  of  M.A.  in  a 
Scotch  university  does  not  necessarily  signify  (with 
the  exception  of  logic  and  metaphysics)  so  much 
of  training  or  acquisition  as  is  required  for  admis- 
sion to  a  first-rate  American  college.  To  model 
after  the  Scotch  universities  would  accordingly  be 
to  lower  the  college  as  we  already  have  it,  and  not 
to  develop  the  university  as  we  should  desire  to 
have  it. 

The  development  of  the  American  university 
involves  the  progressive  settlement  of  two  questions 
concerning  the  best  general  method  of  education, 
which  have  been  of  late  much  discussed  both  here 
and  in  Europe.  These  are,  the  nature  and  amount 
of  choice  which  the  person  under  education  shall 
exercise  as  to  the  subjects  and  method  of  his  edu- 
cation, and  the  kind  and  proportion  of  knowledges 
and  disciplines  which  ought  to  enter  into  a  so-called 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  11 

"liberal"  education.  In  this  country  both  these 
questions  have  generally  been  debated  in  a  rather 
narrow  way.  The  first  has  ordinarily  been  pro- 
posed as  follows :  How  much  of  the  college  cur- 
riculum should  be  required,  how  much  optional  ? 
The  second  has  ordinarily  been  reduced  to  a  strife 
over  the  point,  whether  Greek  is  necessary  to  be 
studied  by  every  one  who  shall  be  entitled  B.A. 
The  limits  of  this  paper  do  not,  of  course,  permit 
me  to  elaborate  and  argue  my  opinion  on  either  of 
these  two  questions.  Nothing  more  than  an  intelli- 
gent and  defensible  opinion^  appealing  to  probabili- 
ties in  the  light  of  past  experience,  can  be  gained 
upon  such  subjects  of  discussion.  The  purpose 
before  me,  however,  makes  it  desirable  that  I  should 
briefly  state  my  opinion  upon  both  these  subjects. 

The  question  as  to  the  choice  which  the  person 
under  education  shall  have  in  the  material  and 
form  of  his  education  is  one  both  of  degrees  and 
of  expedients,  —  that  is  to  say,  it  is  a  question  as 
to  how  much  such  choice  shall  be  allowed,  and  at 
what  time  it  shall  begin,  as  well  as  a  question  con- 
cerning the  best  means  for  guiding  the  choice  and 
for  taking  the  expression  of  it. 

For  the  sake  of  convenience  I  will  speak  of  the 
grades  of  education  which  may  be  secured  at  pres- 
ent in  this  country  as  four  in  number ;  these  are, 
the  primary,  the  secondary,  the  higher,  and  the 
university  education,  the  last  being  understood  to 


12  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

be  in  a  very  inchoate  and  unformed  condition.  By 
the  primary  education  we  will  understand  such  as, 
whether  gained  in  public  or  private  schools,  deals 
with  the  most  common  and  elementary  subjects, 
and  is  not  designed  in  itself  to  fit  the  pupil  for  the 
higher  education.  By  the  secondary  education  we 
will  understand  such  as  is  expressly  designed  in 
preparation  of  the  higher  education;  this  will 
include  those  courses  in  the  best  high-schools  and 
academies  which  fit  pupils  to  enter  the  colleges 
and  first-rate  scientific  schools  of  the  country. 
These  latter  (excluding  all  merely  technical  schools) 
give  what  is  entitled  to  be  called  the  "higher" 
education.  Beyond  all  this  lies  so  much  of  the 
more  strictly  university  education  as  is  mingled 
with  the  later  years  of  the  higher  education,  or  is 
taught  in  so-called  "  graduate  "  courses  or  in  pro- 
fessional schools,  so  far  as  the  latter  are  conformed 
to  the  university  idea.  It  will  appear  in  the  sequel 
that  one  difficult  problem  connected  with  the  devel- 
opment of  the  American  university  concerns  the 
right  separation  of  the  higher  education  into  the 
two  parts  of  which  it  has  actually  come  to  consist, 
so  that,  by  combining  one  of  these  parts  with  the 
secondary  education  as  it  now  exists,  we  may  gain 
a  broad  and  solid  foundation  upon  which  to  build 
the  university  education.  The  university  part  of 
the  higher  education  as  it  now  exists  will,  of 
course,  then  have  to  be  joined  with  the  other  kin- 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  13 

dred  elements  in  so-called  "  post-graduate  "  courses, 
so  as  to  furnish  a  genuine  university  education  in 
the  greatest  possible  wealth  and  solidity.  When 
this  problem  is  practically  solved,  therefore,  we 
shall  have  three  instead  of  four  grades  of  education ; 
these  will  be,  the  primary,  the  secondary,  and  the 
higher  or  university  education,  but  the  two  latter 
will  probably  have  far  more  of  significance  than 
they  now  have. 

Looked  at  in  the  light  of  the  foregoing  distinc- 
tions, the  question  of  the  place  and  amount  of  the 
pupil's  choice  which  should  enter  into  his  educa- 
tion appears  to  me  not  so  diflBcult  of  solution.  With 
regard  to  the  strictly  primary  education  no  choice 
whatever  should  be  permitted,  either  to  the  pupil 
or  to  his  guardian,  —  that  is  to  say,  I  would  have 
each  youth  compelled  by  the  state  to  go  to  a 
certain  distance  along  paths  common  to  all,  with- 
out permission  to  decide  whether  he  will  go  at  all, 
or  whether,  if  he  go,  he  will  go  by  just  such  paths 
rather  than  others.  Of  course,  the  guardian  of  the 
pupil  should  have  the  exercise  of  discretion  as  to 
the  mode  of  teaching,  whether  public  or  private, 
and  perhaps  as  to  the  age  at  which  the  primary 
education  shall  have  been  accomplished.  Oppor- 
tunity for  exceptions  in  the  cases  of  the  incapable 
or  sickly  should  also  be  given.  But  the  State 
should  compel  so  much  of  education  as  seems 
necessary  for  the   safe   and    intelligent  exercise 


14  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

of  the  citizen's  rights,  and  for  his  decent  inter- 
course with  his  fellows.  No  doubt  opinions  will 
differ  as  to  the  amount  and  kinds  of  subjects 
which  should  be  included  in  the  primary  educa- 
tion, and  as  to  its  methods,  text-books,  etc.  But 
the  settlement  of  such  questions  should  not  be 
left  to  the  dull  or  dishonest  wits  of  the  successful 
politician  of  the  ward  or  district;  they  should 
rather  be  settled  by  commission  of  the  most  no- 
table experts  in  education,  appointed  for  that  pur- 
pose by  the  highest  authority  of  the  state. 

The  element  of  the  pupil's  choice  should  enter 
somewhat  largely  into  the  secondary  education, 
but  even  here  by  no  means  in  an  unlimited  way. 
In  the  first  place,  liberty  of  choice  should  be 
allowed  in  deciding  whether  the  secondary  educa- 
tion will  be  entered  upon  at  all  or  not,  and  also, 
if  entered  upon,  to  what  extent  it  will  be  pursued. 
In  my  opinion,  also,  near  the  beginning  of  the 
secondary  education  there  should  be  given  that 
opportunity  for  "  bifurcation  "  which  must  cer- 
tainly come  at  some  time  in  the  course  of  mental 
training.  The  principle  of  this  bifurcation  is  now 
tolerably  plain  and  pretty  generally  acknowledged. 
In  the  words  of  Matthew  Arnold,  the  prime,  direct 
aim  of  education  is  "  to  enable  a  man  to  know  him- 
self and  the  worlds  Corresponding  to  this  two- 
fold aim  of  education  there  is  in  most  men,  dormant 
or  already  dominant,  one  or  the  other  of  two  great 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  15 

"  aptitudes  ;  "  these  are,  the  aptitude  for  the  more 
subjective  and  reflective  studies,  and  the  aptitude 
for  the  studies  of  external  observation.  In  other 
words,  among  youths  who  take  to  anything  in  the 
way  of  study,  some  take  more  naturally  to  letters 
and  philosophy,  and  some  take  more  naturally  to 
physical  and  natural  sciences.  The  secondary 
education  should  recognize  this  difference  in  apti- 
tudes for  one  or  the  other  part  of  the  prime  two- 
fold aim  of  education.  Such  recognition  should 
provide  for  two  main  courses  of  study,  in  one  of 
which  letters  and  the  so-called  humanities  should 
predominate,  and  in  the  other  mathematics  and 
the  physical  and  natural  sciences.  These  courses 
should  themselves,  however,  be  fixed  without 
making  a  frequent  appeal  to  the  choice  of  the 
pupil;  they  should  be  fixed  in  accordance  with 
the  world's  accumulated  wisdom  as  to  the  best 
way  to  teach  a  man  "to  know  himself  and  the 
world,"  in  harmony  with  his  particular  aptitude. 
The  secondary  education,  in  all  cases  where  it  is 
to  lead  up  to  a  university  education,  should  be 
long  and  thorough  enough  to  secure  what  the 
Germans  strive  to  secure  as  a  preparation  for 
their  universities,  —  namely,  the  general  scientific 
culture,  or  formation  {allgemeine  wissenschaftliche 
Bildung)^  of  the  pupil. 

The  higher  or  university  education  should  per- 
mit and  encourage  the  greatest  possible  freedom 


16  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

of  choice  on  the  pupil's  part ;  but  it  should  not 
be  open  (except  as  a  matter  of  courtesy  or  privi- 
lege of  visitation)  to  those  who  have  not  satisfac- 
torily finished  the  secondary  stage.  To  this 
subject,  however,  I  shall  return  later. 

A  word  is  pertinent  in  this  connection  as  to  the 
much-debated  question  of  the  amount  of  optional 
courses  to  be  allowed  in  the  present  college  cur- 
riculum. The  American  college  was  formerly  a 
secondary  school,  pure  and  simple,  and  properly, 
therefore,  did  not  admit  the  university  method  and 
the  university  idea.  The  American  college  has 
now  developed  out  of  the  stage  in  which  it  was 
strictly  a  means  for  secondary  education,  without 
having  yet  developed  into  the  higher  or  university 
stage.  It  contains,  however,  certain  elements  of 
the  university  idea.  These  elements  are  to  be 
welcomed  as  existing  in  the  place  of  something 
better  but  as  yet  unrealizable.  In  so  far  as  the 
college  can  wisely  admit  into  itself,  for  a  time, 
the  elements  of  a  university  education,  it  may 
have,  and  should  have,  so-called  "  optional " 
courses.  But  the  education  which  most  American 
colleges  give  is  still  chiefly  of  the  secondary  order 
and  kind.  This  is  necessarily  so,  because  the 
opportunity  for  such  an  education  as  should  already 
be  possessed  by  every  candidate  for  matriculation 
in  university  courses  cannot  be  obtained  in  this 
country  outside  of  the  colleges. 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  17 

The  chief  part  of  the  present  college  curriculum, 
therefore,  cannot  wisely  be  made  optional,  for  it 
belongs  on  the  other  than  the  university  side  of 
the  college  ;  it  belongs  to  the  secondary  education. 
It  is  an  indispensable  part  of  that  training  which 
enables  the  youth,  where  universities  do  exist, 
to  exercise  such  choice  of  subjects  and  teachers 
(^Lernfreiheif)  as  belongs  to  the  university  educa- 
tion. To  make  this  part  of  the  college  education 
optional  would  not  advance  us  one  step  toward 
converting  the  college  into  the  genuine  university. 
My  objection  —  and  it  is  an  objection  which  seems 
to  me  unanswerable,  except  by  raising  greatly 
the  standard  of  secondary  education  outside  the 
college  —  my  objection  to  making  the  entire  col- 
lege curriculum  elective  is  the  necessary  sequence 
of  the  facts.  The  freshman  in  the  best  American 
college,  irrespective  of  his  age  and  his  wisdom, 
whether  in  his  own  eyes  or  in  the  eyes  of  others, 
has  not  had  (except  in  rare  instances)  a  secondary 
education  of  sufficient  extent  or  thoroughness  to 
fit  him  to  enjoy  the  privileges  of  the  university 
idea.  Place  the  average  Harvard  or  Yale  student 
who  has  just  passed  his  entrance  examinations 
beside  the  German  student  who  has  just  gone 
through  with  his  Abiturienten-JSxamen,  and  com- 
pare the  two.  The  latter  is  greatly  superior  to  the 
former  in  respect  of  "  general  scientific  culture  ; " 
he  is  even  superior  to  the  average  Harvard  or 


18  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

Yale  junior  in  this  respect.  However,  we  are 
rapidly  approaching  the  time  when  we  may  make 
the  secondary  and  relatively  compulsory  education 
end  earlier  than  it  now  does  —  unless,  alas  !  we 
lose  our  fast-ripening  fruit  by  plucking  it  pre- 
maturely. 

Into  the  question  of  the  means  by  which  to 
secure  and  guide  the  pupils'  choice,  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  enter.  To  permit  the  student  who  is 
really  in  the  secondary  stage  of  education  to  make 
up  from  term  to  term,  or  year  to  year,  whatever 
potpourri  he  will  of  elective  courses,  is  perhaps  of 
all  methods  least  likely  to  prove  satisfactory.  It 
should  also  be  noticed  that  the  effort  to  secure 
the  right  kind  and  amount  of  work  in  the  second- 
ary stage  of  education  solely  or  chiefly  by  insisting 
upon  "  pass  "  examinations  results  in  making 
"  crammed  "  men  instead  of  "  formed  "  men.  Per- 
verse studet  qui  examinihus  studet.  Wolf  used  to 
declare.  "  The  country  of  examinations,"  says 
M.  Laboulaye,  speaking  of  Austria,  "  is  precisely 
that  in  which  they  do  not  work  hard."  But  the 
remedy  does  not  consist  in  abolishing  all  examina- 
tions, but  rather  in  stimulating  thorough  teaching 
and  in  requiring  from  the  pupil  the  preparation  of 
daily  and  organically  ordered  tasks. 

The  question  as  to  the  amount  and  kind  of 
knowledges  and  disciplines  which  are  necessary 
to  a  "  liberal  education  "  is,  both  in  theory  and  in 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  19 

fact,  closely  connected  with  the  development  of 
the  university.  No  one  would  think  of  claiming 
that  the  university  man  ought  not  in  all  cases  to 
be  a  man  liberally  educated.  But  one  essential 
part  of  the  idea  and  practice  of  a  genuine  univer- 
sity education  is  freedom  of  choice,  on  the  pupil's 
part,  as  to  the  kind,  if  not  the  amount,  of  knowl- 
edges and  disciplines  in  which  he  will  attain  his 
scientific  culture.  If,  then,  any  particular  knowl- 
edges and  disciplines  are  to  be  required  as  neces- 
sary for  a  liberal  education,  the  enforcement  of 
this  requirement  belongs  to  the  secondary  rather 
than  to  the  university  stage  of  education.  In 
other  words,  if  one  hold  that  a  "liberal  educa- 
tion "  should  comprise  a  certain  knowledge  of,  and 
training  in,  any  branches  of  learning,  one  must 
also  hold  that  such  branches  of  learning  should  be 
rigidly  required  of  the  pupil  in  the  preparatory 
school  and  early  years  of  his  college  course.  For, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  preparatory  school  and  the 
early  years  of  the  college  course  have  hitherto  con- 
stituted, and  do  still  constitute,  our  means  of  sec- 
ondary education  in  this  country. 

I  have  no  hesitation  in  stating  my  conviction 
that  a  goodly  amount  of  certain  kinds  of  knowl- 
edges and  disciplines  is  necessary  for  every  educa- 
tion worthy  to  enjoy  the  distinction  of  being  called 
"liberal."  Therefore  I  am  compelled,  also,  to 
hold  that  both  the  main  courses  of  secondary  edu- 


20  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

cation  should  require  of  all  their  pupils  at  least  a 
certain  amount  of  particular  kinds  of  mental 
acquirement  and  culture,  as  a  prerequisite  to  en- 
trance upon  university  studies.  This  amount  should 
be  notably  greater  than  that  now  exacted  for  admis- 
sion to  our  highest-class  colleges.  In  my  judgment, 
it  should  be  even  somewhat  greater  than  that  now 
attained  by  the  average  junior  in  such  colleges. 

It  is  at  once  objected,  to  the  proposal  to  enforce 
a  considerable  amount  of  training  in  definite 
branches  of  learning  and  culture  upon  every  pupil, 
that  the  number  of  modern  sciences  is  far  too 
great  to  require  even  a  smattering  of  them  all  in 
the  secondary  education.  And,  it  is  added,  a 
smattering  of  many  sciences  is  equivalent  to  no 
science  ;  it  is  even  positively  injurious  to  the  mind 
of  the  learner,  while  the  attempt  to  enforce  it  makes 
a  potpourri  of  education  which  is  quite  as  imrea- 
sonable  as  that  composed  for  themselves  by  some 
of  those  pupils  who  enjoy  the  freest  exercise  of 
choice.  All  this  and  more  is  undoubtedly  true  in 
objection  to  a  certain  way  of  working  the  principle 
of  compulsion  through  the  whole  of  the  secondary 
education.  But  I  have  not  urged  that  a  certain 
large  number  of  particular  sciences  should  be  en- 
forced in  the  secondary  education  of  every  pupil. 
I  have  only  spoken  of  an  amount  and  number  of 
knowledges  and  disciplines  which  are  requisite  for 
such  a  secondary  education   as  will  serve  for  a 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  21 

foundation  to  a  genuine  university  education.  If 
there  is  any  such  amount  and  number  of  studies, 
then  we  cannot  successfully  develop  the  American 
university  without  settling  tliis  basis  of  require- 
ment upon  which  the  development  must  rest.  The 
settlement  of  this  question  will  not  take  place,  in 
fact  and  life,  through  the  dictum  of  any  one  man 
—  not  even  though  that  man  be  learned  in  the 
theory  of  education  or  in  a  position  favorable  for 
forcing  his  convictions  upon  others.  The  settle- 
ment of  this  question  will  come  only  in  time  (and 
perhaps  in  a  long  time),  as  a  growing  consensus 
of  the  opinions  of  those  most  competent  in  such 
matters.  The  opinion  which  I  have  to  express 
shall  be  modestly  expressed ;  at  most,  it  is  only 
one  man's  opinion,  except  so  far  as  it  is  in  accord 
with  the  consensus  of  opinion  already  formed  on 
the  part  of  the  most  competent  authorities. 

A  "  liberal  education  "  seems  to  me  to  include, 
of  necessity,  a  goodly  amount  of  four  great 
branches  of  human  knowledge  and  discipline ; 
these  are :  language,  including  literature ;  mathe- 
matics and  natural  science  ;  the  science  of  man  as 
an  individual  spirit  who  feels  and  thinks  and  acts 
in  relation  to  the  world  of  nature  and  of  his 
fellows,  and  to  God ;  and  the  development  of  the 
human  race  in  history.  All  education  preparatory 
to  the  university  should  require  these  studies  to 
have  been  already  pursued  liberally  ;  but  the  edu- 


22  THE   HIGHER  EDUCATION 

cation  of  the  university  should  leave  every  learner 
free  to  follow  any  special  examples  of  one  or  more 
of  them,  according  to  his  aptitude  and  choice. 
At  the  same  time,  even  in  the  secondary  education, 
a  generous  allowance  should  be  made  —  as  I  have 
already  said  —  for  differences  in  aptitudes,  in  view 
of  the  twofold  aim  of  all  scientific  culture.  But 
this  allowance  should  not  be  made  subject  to  the 
choice  of  the  pupil  from  term  to  term,  or  from 
year  to  year,  —  if  for  no  other  reason,  still  because 
a  real  continuity  or  organic  and  vital  connection 
cannot  be  secured  in  this  way  for  the  different 
parts  of  the  secondary  education.  Nor  should  the 
allowance  be  made  in  the  form  of  a  great  variety 
of  parallel  courses  among  which  the  pupil  must 
choose.  This  plan  is  open,  though  in  less  degree, 
to  the  same  objection  as  the  foregoing.  Moreover, 
unless  it  is  further  limited,  it  does  not  secure  tlior- 
ough  training  in  the  four  great  branches  of  learn- 
ing and  discipline  of  which  I  have  spoken.  And, 
finally,  it  inevitably  results  in  the  repetition,  in 
the  small,  of  the  same  attempt  at  compulsory  im- 
parting of  a  smattering  of  many  knowledges,  of 
which  the  unrevised  college  curriculum  in  this 
country  has  been  accused.  The  secondary  educar 
tion  should,  then,  consist  of  required  studies  in 
all  these  four  branches  ;  but  it  should  be  arranged 
in  such  a  way  as  to  be  thorough  in  a  very  few  ex- 
amples under  each,  and  it  should  be  divided  into 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  23 

two  great  courses  in  which,  by  lajing  greater 
emphasis  upon  some  one  or  more  of  the  four,  a 
generous  allowance  can  be  made  for  the  pupil's 
aptitude.  Further  as  to  some  of  the  details  of  this 
plan  of  a  secondary  education,  which  should  be 
required  as  a  necessary  preparation  for  university 
studies,  I  shall  speak  later  on. 

Substantial  agreement  upon  the  points  hitherto 
discussed  will  insure  a  good  measure  of  agreement 
upon  those  which  are  now  to  follow.  There  need 
be  little  dispute,  since  the  subject  has  in  late  years 
received  so  thorough  an  historical  examination, 
over  the  essential  nature  of  a  genuine  university. 
Since  the  American  university  must,  in  any  event, 
be  a  "university,"  although  it  may  have  certain 
peculiar  features  which  may  be  called  American, 
the  noun  will  set  limits  to  the  adjective  beyond  which 
the  peculiar  features  cannot  grow.  What,  then,  is 
the  norm  according  to  which,  and  the  ideal  toward 
which,  we  must  develop  our  higher  education  ?  In 
other  words,  what  is  the  true  university  idea  ? 

Although  intelligent  persons  need  not  dispute 
over  the  true  idea  of  the  university,  there  is  current 
a  gi'eat  amount  of  unintelligent  opinion  on  this 
subject.  One  prevalent  thought  obviously  is,  that 
a  university  is  a  school,  or  collection  of  schools, 
where  a  great  lot  of  subjects  are  taught  and  a  great 
crowd  of  pupils  go.  And  there  are  elements  of 
truth  in  this  opinion.     A  number  of  faculties  and 


24  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

free  concourse  of  students,  perhaps  of  many  nations 
and  from  many  places,  are  intimately  connected 
with  the  university  idea.  But  there  are  large 
schools,  in  this  country  and  elsewhere,  that  are 
not  universities ;  and  there  have  been  great  uni- 
versities with  a  relatively  small  number  of  students. 
The  grade  and  method  of  the  teaching,  and  the 
spirit  and  previous  training  of  the  students,  are 
important  factors  in  the  university  idea.  Again, 
the  universality  of  the  university  has  been  thought 
to  consist  in  this,  that  the  scope  of  its  instruction 
should  include  all  subjects ;  thus  the  idea  toward 
which  the  American  institution  should  strive  is 
held  to  be  that  of  a  place  where  anybody  can 
come  to  learn  anything  that  can  be  taught  any- 
where. Now,  historically  considered,  this  view  is 
absurd.  The  phrases  in  which  the  word  universitas 
occurs,  if  thus  interpreted,  would  (it  has  been 
pointed  out)  be  equivalent  to  speaking  of  the  uni- 
versity as  "  an  institution  for  studying  everything 
where  they  study  nothing  but  law."  Moreover, 
this  interpretation  of  the  word  misses  the  spirit  of 
the  reality.  For  example,  a  school  of  veterinary 
surgery,  or  a  school  for  learning  to  sing  and  to  play 
the  piano,  may  be  a  convenient  adjunct  or  append- 
age of  a  university.  But  certainly  neither  of  these 
schools  can  ever  become  an  integral  part  of  a 
genuine  university.  The  study  and  teaching  of 
comparative  anatomy  and  physiology,  or  of  zoology, 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  25 

including  the  structure  of  those  valuable  domestic 
animals,  the  horse  and  the  cow,  is  a  legitimate  and 
important  part  of  a  university.  But  such  study 
must  constitute  a  part  of  general  scientific  culture, 
and  be  conducted  as  such. 

It  is  the  8cie7itific  spirit  to  which  the  university 
education  primarily  appeals,  and  which  it  encour- 
ages ;  it  is  the  large  and  free  pursuit  of  science, 
as  science,  which  it  is  bound  to  yield.  This  is 
true  even  of  its  professional  schools.  Even  the 
study  of  surgery  and  medicine,  or  of  theology,  is 
primarily  and  pre-eminently  scientific  in  the  gen- 
uine university.  For  the  same  reason  the  call  for 
chairs  of  "  journalism,"  "  telegraphy,"  etc.,  in  the 
American  university,  and  the  complaint  that  our 
university  instruction  does  not  teach  men  to  speak 
French  and  Italian,  are  both  quite  out  of  place. 
Journalism  and  telegraphy  can  never  properly 
enter  into  the  instruction  of  the  faculties  of  the 
university,  for  they  can  never  be  regarded  as 
broadly  inductive  or  speculative  sciences.  The 
modern  languages  have  no  place  in  university  in- 
struction, except  as  they  are  used  for  the  study 
of  language  and  of  literature,  or  are  made  the 
means  of  getting  at  other  sciences  through  the 
works  written  in  these  languages. 

The  history  of  the  word  "  university  "  has  now 
been  very  thoroughly  investigated.  This  history 
throws  no  little  light  on  the  meaning  of  the  word, 


26  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

the  content  of  the  idea.  It  is  connected  with  the 
history  of  the  term  studium  generals,  which  the 
word  universitas  came  to  supplant.  "  The  name 
studium  generate  "  says  Savigny,  "  has  been  inter- 
preted to  intend  the  whole  collective  body  of  the 
sciences,  but  incorrectly.  .  .  .  The  name  rather 
refers  to  the  extent  of  the  scope  of  operation  of 
these  institutions,  which  were  intended  for  pupils 
of  all  countries."  "  It  meant,"  says  Professor 
Laurie,  "  a  place  where  one  or  more  of  the  liberal 
arts  might  be  prosecuted,  and  which  was  open  to 
all  who  chose  to  go  there  and  study,  free  from  the 
canonical  or  monastic  obligations  and  control." 
It  was,  therefore,  a  school  of  high  grade,  where 
the  spirit  of  freedom,  in  both  teacher  and  pupil, 
prevailed.  It  afterward  came  to  mean  "both  a 
school  for  liberal  studies  and  a  school  open  to  all." 
The  word  universitas,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
originally  applied  to  any  association  of  persons 
acting  somewhat  permanently  together.  It  has 
been  said  that,  in  a  papal  rescript,  vestra  univer- 
sitas often  means  scarcely  more  than  "  all  of  you." 
As  applied  to  a  studium  it  came  to  mean  a  literary 
and  incorporated  community.  But  when  these 
schools  began  to  act  under  some  express  grant  or 
character  the  two  terms  tended  to  become  iden- 
tical ;  and,  finally,  the  word  "  university "  came 
to  take  the  other's  place  and  to  be  exclusively 
used. 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  27 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  primary  thing 
in  the  university  idea,  both  in  time  and  in  thought, 
is  the  association  in  a  certain  way  of  the  teacher 
and  his  pupils.  "  Universities,"  says  Dr.  Ddllin- 
ger, "  originated  as  free  associations  of  respected 
teachers  and  eager  scholars."  This  does  not,  in- 
deed, sufficiently  define  the  modern  university,  but 
it  describes  an  essential  and  indestructible  factor 
of  it.  Now,  if  we  attempt  further  to  describe  the 
modern  university  in  the  light  of  the  ancient  idea, 
we  find  that  it  differs  from  the  university  of  the 
Middle  Ages  chiefly  with  respect  to  the  extent 
and  variety  of  means  in  command  for  the  reali- 
zation of  this  idea.  The  idea  to  be  realized,  and 
the  general  conception  of  the  method  necessary 
for  its  realization,  remain  the  same.  The  idea  to 
be  realized  is  the  highest  scientific  culture  of  the 
individual,  and  the  method  deemed  necessary  for 
its  realization  is  the  right  association  of  the  teacher 
and  pupil.  The  one  word  which,  beyond  all  others, 
describes  this  method  is  "  freedom." 

The  university  teacher  must  have  freedom  in 
investigating  and  teaching;  the  pupil  must  have 
freedom  in  investigating  and  learning  (Lehrfreiheit 
and  Lernfreiheif).  But  freedom  that  does  not 
degenerate  into  license  is  secured  in  the  teacher 
by  selecting  a  man  of  formed  character,  who  has 
himself  gone  over  the  same  path  of  patient,  con- 
scientious, wide,  and  deep  research  by  which  he 


28  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

offers  to  lead  the  pupil.  He  still  travels  daily  in 
this  same  path.  The  pupil,  on  his  part,  is  free  to 
choose  his  teacher  and  his  subjects  of  research ; 
and  his  freedom  is  secured,  as  much  as  possible, 
against  license  by  his  having  been  prepared  for 
freedom  through  the  rigorous  training,  under  law, 
of  the  secondary  education,  and  through  the  ex- 
ample and  inspiration  of  his  teacher  and  of  the 
entire  community  of  which  he  forms  a  part.  He 
must  learn  to  "know  from  experience,"  as  says 
Professor  von  Sybel,  "  what  is  the  meaning  of 
emancipation  of  the  individual  mind,  scientific 
thoroughness,  and  free  depth  of  thought." 

Such  freedom  in  scientific  research  and  teaching: 
as  the  university  uses  to  attain  its  end  of  the 
highest  scientific  culture  is  not,  however,  to  be 
considered  as  separable  from  character.  For,  in 
the  words  of  another  German  professor,  "  genuine 
science  is  the  foundation  of  genuine  freedom  of 
spirit.  Universities  are,  therefore,  places  for  the 
formation  of  genuine  freedom  of  spirit.  They  could 
not  be  this  if  they  were  directed  in  a  one-sided 
way  to  the  setting  free  and  forming  of  intelligence. 
Freedom  of  spirit  without  the  formation  of  char- 
acter is  not  conceivable.  Only  the  unity  of  the 
formation  of  intelligence  and  character  is  genuine 
freedom  of  spirit." 

The  true  end  of  the  university  is,  then,  the  high- 
est scientific  culture  of  the  individual, and  its  peculiar 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  29 

method  is  the  most  intelligent  and  highly  trained 
freedom  in  research,  in  teaching,  and  in  learning. 
This  end  and  this  method  served  at  the  beginning 
to  distinguish  the  schools  of  the  university  order 
from  the  monastic  and  ecclesiastical  schools  ;  they 
may  fitly  serve  still  as  setting  the  ideal  to  which 
the  American  university  must  conform  itself. 
Writers  so  widely  divergent  in  their  views  and 
ways  of  thought  as  Matthew  Arnold  and  Cardinal 
Newman  are  in  substantial  agreement  as  to  the 
end  at  which  the  genuine  university  aims.  This 
end  is  not,  then,  primarily  the  preparation  of  the 
pupil  for  any  particular  employment  or  profession, 
or  even  for  being  a  good  and  useful  citizen  in 
general.  University  culture,  does,  indeed,  tend 
strongly  to  produce  good  and  useful  service  of 
every  kind,  and  good  and  useful  citizenship ;  but 
this  is  its  indirect  tendency  rather  than  its  direct 
primary  aim.  For  example,  Professor  Payne,  in 
pleading  for  a  science  of  education,  reminds  Eng- 
lishmen of  Sir  Bartle  Frere's  conviction  that "  the 
acknowledged  and  growing  power  of  Germany  is 
intimately  connected  with  the  admirable  education 
which  the  great  body  of  the  German  nation  are 
in  the  habit  of  receiving;"  as  well  as  of  the 
declaration  of  a  writer  in  the  " Times  "  :  "I  think 
the  maintenance  of  our  commercial  superiority  is 
very  much  of  a  schoolmaster's  question  ; "  and  of 
the  statement  of  another  writer  that  "the  Ger- 


80  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

mans  are  outstripping  us  in  the  race  for  commer- 
cial superiority  in  the  far  East."  These  advantages 
of  a  liberal  and  university  education,  widely  dif- 
fused, are  not  to  be  directly  aimed  at,  for,  like 
happiness,  they  are  likely  thus  to  be  lost.  They 
are  to  be  secured  as  the  indirect  but  sure  result, 
so  far  as  the  university  is  concerned,  of  the  at- 
tainment of  its  direct  aim  in  the  highest  scientific 
culture  of  the  greatest  number  possible,  and  espe- 
cially of  all  those  placed  in  positions  where  they 
are  trusted  and  followed  by  the  people. 

Choice  by  the  pupil  as  to  what  he  will  study, 
and  as  to  where  and  of  whom  and  how  far  he  will 
study  it,  belongs  of  right  to  the  university  idea. 
The  university  itself,  however,  must  decide  how 
much  of  secondary  education  the  pupil  shall  have 
in  order  to  admission  to  its  freedom,  and  also  how 
much  of  the  highest  scientific  culture  he  must 
attain  to  win  the  mark  of  its  approval  as  his  alma 
mater.  Beyond  these  restrictions,  the  more  gen- 
erous the  freedom  permitted  and  encouraged  the 
more  worthy  the  compliance  of  the  university  with 
its  own  ideal.  In  so  far  as  professional  studies 
constitute  an  integral  part  of  the  instruction  of 
the  university,  since  the  degree  conferred  upon 
the  student  of  them  is  a  guarantee  of  a  certain 
amount  of  scientific  culture  of  a  particular  kind, 
such  studies  may  be  prescribed.  Yet  even  in  these 
cases  the  same  end  and  method  must  be  adhered 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  31 

to  with  the  utmost  possible  strictness.  A  theologi- 
cal seminary  or  medical  school  where  freedom  of 
instruction  and  learning  is  not  regnant  cannot 
become  a  proper  part  of  a  genuine  university;  it 
must  remain  of  the  nature  of  a  sectional,  or 
monastic  and  ecclesiastical,  school. 

It  is  chiefly  because  the  German  universities 
most  worthily  realize  the  ideal  of  the  highest  free 
and  scientific  culture  that  they  are  confessedly 
superior  to  all  others,  —  confessedly,  on  the  part  of 
the  most  thoughtful  and  well-informed  educators 
under  rival  systems.  "  The  danger  of  France," 
says  M.  Renan  of  its  university,  "  consists  in  this : 
we  are  becoming  a  nation  of  brilliant  lecturers 
and  fine  writers."  "  It  is,"  says  Professor  Patti- 
son,  of  England,  "  as  if  our  universities  were 
destined  only  to  teach  in  perfection  the  art  of 
writing  leading  articles."  No  one,  however,  would 
for  a  moment  think  of  implying  what  is  involved 
in  remarks  like  these  with  reference  to  the  poorest 
German  university;  for  every  university  in  Ger- 
many, by  its  theory  and  custom  alike,  undertakes 
worthily  to  realize  this  admirable  ideal. 

Supposing  that  those  upon  whom  falls  the  task 
of  developing  the  American  university  have  grasped 
the  right  conception,  the  actual  attainment  of  the 
ideal  will  inevitably  encounter  many  difficulties. 
They  have  certain  problems  before  them  which 
are  embodied  in  hard  matter-of-fact.     No  amount 


32  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

of  fine  writing  or  generous  planning  will  do  away 
with  the  necessity  of  encountering  these  problems 
one  by  one,  and  of  giving  them  a  progressively 
better  and  better  practical  solution.  The  whole 
condition  of  education  in  this  country,  as  it  stands 
in  the  minds  of  the  people  and  in  the  existing 
educational  institutions,  from  highest  to  lowest,  is 
concerned  in  the  development  of  the  university.  I 
shall  treat  of  only  two  of  these  problems.  But 
these  two  are  perhaps  the  most  difficult,  and  they 
are  so  closely  related  to  each  other  as  to  constitute 
in  some  respects  one  and  the  same  problem.  They 
are,  the  present  condition  and  future  development 
of  the  secondary  education  of  the  country,  and  the 
constitution  and  fate  of  the  American  college. 

No  one  would  contend  that  the  secondary  edu- 
cation in  this  country  is  in  a  satisfactory  condition. 
It  is  undoubtedly  lacking  in  thoroughness,  in  bal- 
ance, in  organic  unity,  and  progressive  character. 
By  the  "  secondary  "  education  I  now  mean  such 
education,  in  addition  to  that  primary  education 
required  of  every  one  by  the  State,  as  the  university 
must  require  for  admission  to  its  privileges.  But 
—  as  has  already  been  pointed  out  —  the  whole 
circuit  of  secondary  education  is  at  present,  in  this 
country,  divided  into  two  sections,  one  of  which 
lies  in  courses  preparatory  for  college  or  for  the 
highest-class  scientific  school,  and  the  other  in  the 
curriculum  of  the  college  or  of  the  scientific  school. 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  33 

This  latter  section  is  supposed  to  constitute  the 
"  higher  "  or  highest  education.  Neither  of  these 
two  sections  of  what,  in  its  entirety,  virtually 
represents  the  secondary  education  of  the  country 
—  the  education  which  must  be  required  in  prepa- 
ration for  the  university  —  is  in  a  satisfactory 
condition. 

No  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  subject  would 
think  of  claiming  that  (with  a  few  exceptions)  the 
high-schools  and  academies  and  other  places  for 
fitting  youth  for  college  are  doing  their  work  in  a 
satisfactory  way.  This  fact,  however,  is  by  no 
means  wholly  due  to  fault  or  deficiency  on  their 
part ;  indeed,  education  is  so  much  of  an  organic 
unity  that,  if  any  of  the  stages  or  elements  of  it 
be  defective,  the  deficiency  is  felt  throughout  all 
the  subsequent  growth  of  the  entire  organism. 
The  secondary  education  is  so  unsatisfactory  partly 
because  of  the  condition  of  that  primary  education 
on  which  the  secondary  must  be  built.  For,  here 
again,  no  one  acquainted  with  the  subject  would 
think  of  claiming  that  the  public  and  private 
schools  which  start  the  process  of  education  are 
in  anything  like  a  satisfactory  condition.  Probably 
the  average  public  school  of  the  primary  grade  is, 
on  the  whole,  more  effective  than  the  average 
private  school  of  the  same  grade.  But  what  is  the 
condition  of  the  public  schools  of  the  primary 
grade  in  this  country  ?    To  speak  the  truth  plainly, 

3 


34  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

they  are  in  many  cases  too  much  managed  by 
political  powers  that  have  no  kind  of  fitness  for 
the  work,  and  the  instruction  is  too  much  given 
by  immature  girls  who  have  themselves  received 
no  thorough  education  and  who,  far  too  frequently, 
teach  only  as  a  makeshift  until  they  can  secure 
release  by  way  of  marriage. 

How,  then,  can  the  best  and  truly  progressive 
secondary  education  be  built  upon  a  foundation 
laid  by  such  hands  under  such  circumstances  ? 
Substantially  the  same  things  are  true,  however, 
of  a  considerable  part  of  the  secondary  education 
itself;  only  in  this  case  the  managing  political 
powers  come  into  contact  with  certain  subjects 
which  strike  them  with  somewhat  of  the  mysteri- 
ous awe  which  belongs  to  all  unknown  subjects, 
and  with  a  few  teachers  who  make  themselves  felt 
as  strong  and  thoroughly  educated  persons  alone 
can.  But,  even  in  those  subjects  which  are  more 
especially  selected  as  the  knowledges  and  disci- 
plines whose  acquaintance  must  be  made  in  a  gen- 
erous way  before  the  youth  can  be  ready  for  the 
freer  and  higher  scientific  culture  of  the  university, 
the  few  really  fit  teachers  must  spend  much  of 
their  time  in  teaching  the  pupil  what  he  should 
have  been  taught  long  ago,  but  has  not  learned, 
and  in  helping  him  to  unlearn  a  large  part  of 
what  he  has  been  taught.  How  can  such  a  sec- 
ondary education  compare  for  a  moment  with  that 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  35 

given  by  teachers  every  one  of  whom  has  had  a 
thorough  education,  and  arranged  in  courses  intel- 
ligently selected  and  organically  united  by  the 
highest  learning  and  skill  ? 

The  other  section  of  the  secondary  education  of 
the  country — viz.,  that  which  lies  within  the  curric- 
ulum of  the  college,  or  the  highest-class  scientific 
school  —  is  also  as  truly,  if  not  as  largely  and 
obviously,  in  an  unsatisfactory  condition.  The 
best  fitting-schools,  whether  academies  or  high- 
schools,  are  not  infrequently  better  off,  with  respect 
to  the  character  of  their  teachers,  pupils,  courses 
of  study,  and  means  for  handling  their  courses, 
than  are  the  greater  part  of  our  so-called  colleges. 
Still,  almost  all  the  colleges  are  constantly  making 
important  changes  for  the  better.  No  doubt  the 
colleges  of  the  first  rank  are,  considering  the  mate- 
rial from  which  their  pupils  must  be  made,  on 
account  of  the  unsatisfactory  condition  of  the  early 
part  of  the  secondary  education,  doing  excellent 
work.  I  think  it  would  not  be  extravagant  to  say 
that  the  American  colleges  are  now  giving  to  the 
average  pupil  a  more  thorough  education  than  is 
bestowed  upon  any  but  their  honor-men  by  any  of 
the  universities  of  Great  Britain.  But  these  col- 
leges, too,  are  prevented,  by  certain  conditions 
which  lie  partly  within  and  partly  outside  of  them- 
selves, from  doing  the  best  work  in  the  way  of 
continuing  the  secondary  education.     Accordingly, 


36  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

the  best  approach  to  a  true  university  education 
which  they  can  make  at  present  is  by  way  of  offer- 
ing certain  elective  courses  as  a  part  of  the  later 
years  of  the  college  curriculum,  and  by  inducing  a 
few  pupils  to  gather  for  the  purpose  of  pursuing 
so-called  "  post-graduate  "  courses.  But  in  many 
cases  (at  least,  with  the  exception  of  three  or  four 
institutions)  these  graduate  (better  so  called  than 
"  post-graduate  ")  courses  are  without  satisfactory 
beginning  or  ending. 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  the  progressive  reorgan- 
ization of  our  secondary  education  —  a  subject  full 
of  many  difficult  practical  problems  —  is  an  indis- 
pensable prerequisite  or,  rather,  accompaniment  of 
the  development  of  the  university.  But  since  part 
of  this  education  now  lies,  and  for  a  long  time  to 
come  must  lie,  within  the  college  curriculum,  the 
reorganization  of  the  secondary  education  is  con- 
nected with  the  fate  of  the  college  itself. 

I  will  now  briefly  indicate  the  lines  along  which 
the  work  of  reorganization  should  proceed.  The 
entire  secondary  education  should,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, be  made  into  a  connected  and  organic  whole ; 
and  the  aim  should  be  to  have  it  finished  at  the 
end  of  what  is  now  sophomore  year  in  the  colleges 
of  the  first  rank,  or  at  the  end  of  the  entire  required 
curriculum  of  the  scientific  schools  of  the  first 
rank.  It  should  be  arranged  in  two  great  courses, 
both  of  which  should  be,  in  respect  of  all  their 


THE   AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  37 

studies  —  what,  how  much,  and  what  order  —  care- 
fully prescribed.  Both  of  these  great  courses 
should  include  all  the  four  kinds  of  knowledges 
and  disciplines  which  are  considered  as  indispen- 
sable parts  of  a  liberal  education,  and  as  necessary 
preparation  for  the  range  and  freedom  of  university 
studies.  But  these  knowledges  and  disciplines 
should  be  taught  in  different  proportions  by  the 
two  courses.  The  course  which  leans  toward,  or 
places  the  emphasis  upon,  language  and  the  human- 
ities should  comprise  no  less  of  mathematics,  and 
even  more  of  the  physical  and  natural  sciences, 
than  it  now  contains.  It  should  comprise  more, 
not  less,  of  the  classical  languages,  of  both  Latin 
and  Greek,  and  of  the  literature  and  antiquities 
which  belong  to  these  languages.  But  these  lan- 
guages should  be  taught  very  differently  from 
either  that  petty  but  strict  way  or  that  pretentious 
but  loose  way  which  have  too  much  predominated 
hitherto. 

The  other  one  of  the  two  great  courses  in  this 
bifurcated  secondary  education  should  place  the 
emphasis  upon  mathematics  and  the  physical  and 
natural  sciences.  As  a  condition  of  entering  the 
higher  scientific  school  there  should  be  required  no 
less  of  mathematics  and  the  natural  sciences  than 
is  now  required,  but  there  should  also  be  required 
much  more  knowledge  of  literature  and  of  at  least 
one  of  the  classical  languages.     The  thorough  study 


38  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

of  at  least  one  of  the  classical  languages  should 
be  an  indispensable  prerequisite  of  beginning  the 
university  education,  because  the  study  of  language 
and  literature  is  an  indispensable  requirement  of 
beginning  such  education  ;  and  no  other  languages 
than  Latin  and  Greek  offer  anything  like  the  same 
advantages  for  the  study  of  language  as  the  medium 
of  the  spirit,  and  for  the  study  of  the  spirit  that 
moves  in  such  written  language  as  has  escaped  the 
envy  of  time. 

It  should  not  be  objected  to  this  plan  that  it  will 
necessarily  postpone  too  long  the  time  at  which  the 
secondary  education  may  be  finished.  For,  given 
men  of  the  highest  cultivation  to  arrange  and  to 
teach  the  studies  of  the  earlier  portion  of  the 
secondary  cultivation,  and  there  will  be  no  difficulty 
whatever  in  bringing  youth,  at  the  average  age  of 
seventeen,  to  the  point  where  the  college  or  scientific 
school  now  receives  them.  This  is  none  too  early 
for  a  boy  to  be  as  far  advanced  and  as  well  trained 
as  our  students  now  are  at  the  close  of  freshman 
year  in  the  institutions  of  the  highest  rank.  At 
least  two  years  within  college,  and  at  least  three 
years  in  the  scientific  school,  will  be  required  for  a 
long  time  to  come  in  order  worthily  to  complete  the 
secondary  education.  The  aim  and  method  of 
these  years  should  be  precisely  the  same  as  the  aim 
and  method  of  the  preceding  part  of  the  secondary 
education  ;  the  studies,  also,  should  be  largely  the 
same. 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  39 

Into  both  of  these  great  courses,  whose  primary 
aim  is  to  teach  the  pupil  to  know  himself  and  the 
world  by  enforcing  "  the  general  training  and  in- 
vigoration  of  the  mind,"  there  must  enter  at  some 
time  the  other  two  of  the  four  kinds  of  knowledge 
and  discipline  which  compose  a  liberal  education. 
These  are,  the  knowledge  of  the  individual  human 
mind,  and  the  knowledge  of  the  development  of  the 
race  in  history.  The  former  should  include  the 
subjects  of  logic,  psychology,  and  ethics  ;  the  latter 
should  comprise  an  outline  sketch  of  general  history 
and  a  more  special  study  of  one  or  more  epochs  or 
nations,  in  order  that  the  pupil  may  have  some  real 
experience  of  the  spirit  and  method  of  genuine 
historical  study.  Both  courses  of  the  secondary 
grade  should  include  these  subjects,  though  possibly 
in  different  proportions.  With  the  right  arrange- 
ment and  better  teaching  of  the  entire  secondary 
education,  there  would  be  no  insuperable  difficulty 
in  accomplishing  at  the  average  age  of  nineteen  or 
twenty  all  that  I  have  indicated  as  necessary  in 
preparation  for  the  university  education.  Indeed, 
the  pupil  thus  trained  should  be  quite  as  well  fitted 
for  that  freedom  in  research  and  learning  which  is 
the  way  to  the  highest  scientific  culture  as  the 
average  graduate,  at  present,  of  our  best  scientific 
schools  and  colleges. 

During  all  these  years  of  secondary  training  no 
pretence  should  be  encouraged  in  the  pupil  that  he 


40  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

is  accumulating  new  and  rare  knowledge.  Both 
teacher  and  pupil  should  understand  that  the  latter 
is  under  the  former  as  his  jpoedagogus,  to  lead  him 
to  the  higher  freedom  which  is  coming.  Any 
attempt  prematurely  to  introduce  the  methods  of 
the  university  education,  or  to  lower  the  standard 
of  the  education  preparatory  to  it,  will  be  prejudicial 
to  the  development  of  the  true  ideal  of  the  uni- 
versity. For  example,  to  lower  the  standard  of 
minimum  requirement  for  admission  to  college  will 
have  the  effect  of  degrading  the  high-schools  and 
academies  which  now  fit  youth  for  college,  and  of 
either  diminishing  the  whole  amount  of  the  second- 
ary education  or  crowding  more  of  it  into  the 
college  curriculum.  It  will  doubtless,  also,  increase 
the  inefficiency  and  carelessness  of  both  pupils  and 
teachers  in  reaching  even  this  lowered  standard. 
The  similar  attempt  at  Oxford  resulted  so  that,  in 
1863,  Mr.  0.  Ogle  wrote  to  the  vice-chancellor: 
"  The  standard  has  been  sensibly  lowered,  and 
the  proportion  of  plucks  has  sensibly  increased." 
Moreover,  to  convert  the  college  into  an  imitation 
of  the  university  —  especially  in  its  earlier  years, 
when  its  pupils  and  instruction  are  not,  and  cannot 
be  of  the  university  order  —  will  secure  only  the 
temporary  satisfaction  which  the  bestowal  of  titles 
sometimes  brings ;  it  will  postpone  rather  than 
hasten  the  realization  of  a  worthy  ideal. 

The   second  difficult  practical   problem   which 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  41 

must  be  solved  in  order  to  the  development  of  the 
American  university  is  the  fate  of  the  American 
college.  How  this  problem  must  be  solved  has  al- 
ready in  part  been  indicated.  Such  of  the  educa- 
tion now  required  by  the  college  as  can  justify  its 
claims  to  be  required  at  all  in  preparation  for  the 
advanced  and  free  scientific  culture  of  the  uni- 
versity must  be  retained  as  a  prescribed  part  of 
the  secondary  education.  Such  of  the  college  cur- 
riculum as  is  now  modelled  after  the  university 
idea  must  be  -withdrawn  from  this  curriculum,  re- 
modelled, and  united  with  the  so-called  "  post- 
graduate "  courses ;  and  the  whole  thus  formed 
must  be  enlarged  and  raised  to  the  standard  of 
this  idea.  It  will  at  once  be  objected  that  this  plan 
will  divide  and  alter  the  present  constitution  of  the 
American  college.  I  reply,  precisely  so  ;  this  is 
what  must  come  to  pass  in  the  development  of  the 
university.  But  let  it  be  observed  that  the  destined 
passing  away  of  the  present  constitution  of  the 
American  college  in  no  respect  detracts  from  its 
past  services  or  alters  the  propriety  of  adhering 
closely  to  its  best  elements  in  their  present  com- 
bination until  the  better  arrangement  of  both  our 
secondary  and  our  higher  education  can  be  secured. 
Nor  is  a  change  of  the  present  constitution  of  the 
college  equivalent  to  an  abandonment  of  the  idea 
of  college  education. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  curriculum  of 


42  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

the  American  college  is  to-day  in  a  condition  of 
exceedingly  unstable  equilibrium.  Such  a  con- 
dition is  by  no  means  wholly  due  to  intelligent  ob- 
jections to  this  curriculum  ;  but  neither  is  it  due  to 
wholly  irrational  objections.  The  amount  and  kind 
of  studies  now  required  by  this  institution  can  by 
no  means  be  clearly  justified.  The  permission  to 
elect,  with  respect  to  the  amount  and  kind  of 
studies  to  which  it  applies,  is  plainly  given  in  many 
cases  as  a  matter  of  accident  or  of  temporary  con- 
venience rather  than  as  a  conclusion  based  on 
reason  and  experience.  The  result  is  that  the 
present  position  of  the  curriculum  of  the  American 
college  is  anomalous  ;  and  the  higher  the  grade  of 
the  college  whose  curriculum  we  examine,  the  more 
anomalous  is  its  character.  Such  a  condition  can- 
not be  regarded  as  anything  better  than  the  best 
temporary  expedient,  —  a  creditable  makeshift  de- 
vised in  the  effort  to  advance,  but  not  to  advance  too 
fast  or  in  the  wrong  direction.  Inevitably,  those 
institutions  which  have  admitted  most  of  the 
university  principle  into  their  college  courses  have 
obtained  the  largest  mixture  of  the  secondary  and 
the  truly  higher  education. 

At  the  same  time  that  a  variety  of  elective  courses 
has  been  introduced  into  the  college  curriculum  of 
our  institutions  of  the  first  rank,  the  same  institu- 
tions have  been  making  the  effort  to  develop  a  true 
university  education  outside  of  and  farther  up  than 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  43 

the  college  curriculum.  In  other  words,  they  have 
instituted  graduate  courses  open  only  to  those  who 
have  the  requisite  amount  of  secondary  education. 
The  development  of  these  graduate  courses  has 
encountered  several  almost  insuperable  obstacles. 
The  most  hard  and  obstinate  of  these  obstacles  are 
the  following :  the  prevalent  low  esteem  of  the 
highest  truly  scientific  culture ;  the  excessive 
estimate  of  what  is  called  "  practical "  in  education 
—  of  bread-and-butter  studies  {BrodstudicTi)  ;  the 
poor  condition  of  the  secondary  education,  and  so 
the  impossibility  of  offering  the  best  to  even  the 
graduates  of  most  of  our  colleges ;  the  impatience 
of  our  American  youth  and  of  their  guardians,  that 
is  quite  opposed  to  that  quiet  continuous  growth 
which  the  noblest  learning  and  mental  discipline 
must  undergo,  etc. 

It  appears  that  those  colleges  which  have  found 
themselves  in  condition  to  enlarge  greatly  the 
university  part  of  the  college  curriculum  are,  as 
a  rule,  the  ones  which  have  also  done  most  to  pro- 
vide graduate  instruction.  But  thus  far  even  these 
institutions  have  been  obliged  to  leave  the  two 
halves,  as  it  were,  of  a  possible  university  instruc- 
tion, separated  by  the  graduation  from  all  study  of 
most  of  their  pupils  at  the  close  of  the  college 
senior  year.  These  institutions  must  as  rapidly 
and  completely  as  possible  unite  the  two  thus  far 
separate   halves    into   a  unity   of  the   university 

Students  Library 


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rnlitoriui 


44  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

kind ;  for  it  is  to  these  institutions  that  the  country 
should  look  for  the  development  of  the  genuine 
university. 

The  methods  by  which  the  accomplishment  of 
this  combination  of  the  post-  and  the  awie-graduate 
elements  of  the  university  shall  be  brought  about 
cannot,  of  course,  be  described  speculatively  in  de- 
tail ;  but  some  hints  concerning  them,  and  concern- 
ing their  probable  working,  are  clearly  in  place  here. 
I  wish,  in  the  first  place,  then,  to  call  attention  again 
to  the  inseparable  connection  which  exists  between 
the  development  of  the  secondary  education,  both 
within  and  without  the  college  curriculum,  and  the 
management  of  that  curriculum  so  as  to  develop 
the  university  education.  And  now  let  us  suppose 
that  the  earlier  part  of  the  secondary  education 
has  been  rearranged  and  thoroughly  well  taught ; 
it  will  thus  become  perfectly  feasible  to  put  into 
the  last  two  years  of  this  secondary  education  — 
the  two  years  corresponding  to  the  freshman  and 
sophomore  in  our  colleges  of  the  first  rank  —  all 
the  required  work  in  physics  and  natural  science, 
in  history  and  literature,  in  logic,  psychology,  and 
ethics,  which  constitutes  the  staple  of  the  instruc- 
tion at  present  given  in  the  junior  and  senior  years 
of  the  college  curriculum.  Let  the  first  five  or 
six  years  of  the  secondary  education  be  well  ar- 
ranged and  well  taught,  upon  the  basis  of  a  sound 
primary  education,  and  let  the  last  two  or  three 


^^ 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  45 

years  of  this  education  comprise  subjects  now 
reasonably  required  in  our  college  curriculum,  and 
let  these  last  years  be  organically  connected  with 
the  preceding  five  or  six  years,  and  then  it  will 
be  perfectly  feasible  to  prepare  the  average  Ameri- 
can youth  at  nineteen  or  twenty  for  beginning 
a  true  university  education.  Indeed,  let  the  sec- 
ondary education  be  properly  reformed  and  duly 
elevated,  and  then  the  youth  who  has  well  accom- 
plished it  will  be  better  fitted  to  enter  upon  a  uni- 
versity education  than  is,  at  present,  the  average 
youth  of  twenty-two  who  has  just  graduated  from 
a  first-class  American  college.  And  the  youth  of 
twenty,  thus  well  educated  in  the  secondary  stage, 
will  be  more  likely  to  desire  to  have  a  university 
education.  If  he  sees  before  him  the  offer  of  three 
or  four  more  years  of  training  and  research,  in 
subjects  and  under  teachers  that  he  may  select 
with  perfect  freedom,  he  will  probably  wish  to 
accept  that  offer.  If  he  or  his  guardians  have 
wealth  or  a  competency,  he  and  they  will  certainly 
be  more  ready  to  spend  the  money  as  well  as  the 
time  upon  his  higher  education,  when  it  becomes 
clearer  in  this  country  what  the  best  scientific  cul- 
ture means  for  the  individual  and  for  society. 
If  he  and  his  friends  be  poor,  he  will  be  more 
likely  to  be  willing  to  struggle  hard  and  to  deny 
himself,  somewhat  as  large  numbers  of  German 
students  do,  in  order  to  enjoy  this  highest  scien- 


46  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION" 

tific  culture.  The  choicest  and  most  promising 
of  these  youths  thus  engaged  in  a  university  edu- 
cation may  also  be  expected  to  do  creditable  origi- 
nal work,  and  thus  enrich  the  scientific  knowledge 
and  literature  of  the  country;  and  to  institute 
valuable  courses  of  instruction,  and  thus  enrich 
the  teaching  of  the  university.  And,  in  my  judg- 
ment, it  will  be  far  worthier  and  more  profitable 
for  the  country  to  raise  at  first  a  few,  and  then 
a  larger  and  larger  number,  by  the  steps  of  a 
thorough,  enforced  secondary  education,  to  the  level 
of  a  genuine  university  culture  than  to  bring  the 
name  of  university  culture  to  the  level  of  those  who 
are  really  only  low  down  in  the  secondary  stage  of 
education. 

This  department  of  more  general  philosophical 
and  scientific  studies,  to  which  the  educated  youth 
of  twenty  is  invited,  should  be  placed  parallel  with 
the  courses  in  the  professional  schools  in  order  to 
form  the  whole  circuit  of  university  education. 
Such  relations  should  be  instituted  and  maintained 
between  it  and  the  more  strictly  professional 
schools  of  the  university  as  that  each  shall  assist 
and  enrich  the  other.  In  this  way,  on  the  basis 
of  a  secondary  education  attained  at  the  close  of 
what  corresponds  to  the  present  sophomore  year, 
the  young  man  in  the  advanced  academical  courses 
should  have  the  privilege,  not  only  of  selecting 
such  of  these  courses  as  are  most  nearly  akin  to 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  47 

his  future  professional  life,  but  also  of  beginning 
the  professional  courses  themselves.  The  young 
man  in  the  professional  school  should  also  have 
the  opportunity  of  enlarging  the  scope  of  his  pro- 
fessional studies  by  free  access  to  all  the  more 
strictly  academical,  the  philosophical  and  scien- 
tific, courses. 

But  the  question  must  be  answered:  What  of 
the  youth  who  has  chosen  to  gratify  his  supposed 
aptitude  for  the  knowledges  and  disciplines  that 
deal  with  external  nature,  and  who  has  therefore 
chosen  the  other  one  of  the  two  courses  into  which 
the  secondary  education  was  supposed  to  become 
bifurcated  ?  Is  he  to  meet  in  the  university 
courses  on  an  equality  his  fellow-student  who  has 
gone  by  the  other  path  and  passed  through  the 
college  curriculum  ?  Yes ;  but  only  in  case  he 
and  his  teachers  have  complied  with  certain  con- 
ditions. In  other  words,  the  secondary  education 
now  given  by  the  scientific  courses  in  the  high- 
schools  and  academies,  and  by  the  succeeding 
courses  in  the  scientific  schools  of  the  first  rank, 
like  those  connected  with  Yale  and  Harvard  uni- 
versities, must  enlarge  and  strengthen  and  amend 
its  curriculum  in  order  to  fit  its  graduates  for  a 
true  university  education.  It  must  enlarge  and 
strengthen  itself  by  requiring  of  its  pupils  much 
more  of  literary,  linguistic,  historical,  and  philo- 
sophical study,  without  diminishing  at  all  its  re- 


48  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

quirements  in  mathematics  and  in  the  physical 
and  natural  sciences.  It  must  amend  the  spirit 
of  its  instruction  by  putting  away  all  contempt  for 
classical  and  historical  and  philosophical  learning, 
and  all  that  pride  which  leads  men  to  refuse  the 
name  of  "  science "  to  any  knowledge  but  their 
own.  Here,  again,  it  appears  that  the  problem  of 
the  development  of  the  university  in  this  country  is 
largely  the  problem  of  securing  a  satisfactory  sec- 
ondary education. 

Finally,  it  is  plain  that  the  development  of  the 
university  in  this  country  involves  a  marked  and 
permanent  differentiation  into  two  classes  of  the 
higher  educational  institutions  now  in  existence. 
The  vast  majority  of  the  "  colleges,"  so  called,  in 
this  country  should  be  content  to  remain  colleges  — 
that  is,  places  which  make  no  pretence  to  carry 
men  beyond  such  secondary  education  as  is  pre- 
paratory to  a  genuine  university  education.  To 
improve  the  secondary  education  which  they  im- 
part, and  to  make  it  somewhat  worthy  of  the  idea 
connected  in  the  minds  of  our  people  with  the 
word  "  collegiate,"  may  well  satisfy  their  highest 
ambition.  On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  great  majority  of  the  institutions 
now  called  "  universities "  should  renounce  both 
the  name  and  the  pretence  of  the  thing.  Only 
those  few  institutions  that  have  already  acquired 
large  resources  of  famous  men  and  established 


THE  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY  49 

courses  and  equipment  for  the  highest  instruction, 
and  that  can  hope  to  draw  from  their  own  and 
from  other  colleges  a  sufficient  constituency  of 
pupils  already  trained  in  a  thorough  secondary 
education,  should  strive  to  develop  themselves 
into  universities.  Large  means  for  scientific  re- 
search —  libraries,  museums,  observatories,  etc.  — 
are  indispensable  for  this  development.  A  com- 
plement of  professional  schools,  with  their  facul- 
ties, is  also,  if  not  indispensable,  at  least  highly 
important.  I  venture  to  assert  that  not  more  than 
a  half-dozen  (?)  universities  should  be  developed 
in  the  entire  country  during  the  next  generation, 
and  that  no  new  institutions  to  bear  that  name 
should,  on  any  grounds  whatever,  be  founded. 

It  is  within  lines  such  as  I  have  drawn  above, 
and  by  keeping  in  view  the  right  high  ideal  while 
also  grasping  with  a  firm  hand  the  hard  practical 
conditions  and  limitations  of  the  ideal,  that  the 
American  university  should  be  developed.  All  the 
details  no  man  need  undertake  to  arrange  before- 
hand with  authority.  But  every  effort  may  guard 
against  certain  errors.  And  on  this  point  let  us 
recall  the  significant  saying  of  Lotze  :  "  There  are 
no  errors  which  take  such  firm  hold  of  men's  minds 
as  those  in  which  inexactness  of  thought  and  lofty 
feeling  combine  to  produce  a  condition  of  enthusi- 
astic exaltation." 


THE  PLACE  OF  THE  FITTING-SCHOOL 
IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 


THE  PLACE  OF  THE  FITTING-SCHOOL 
IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  present  gener- 
ation is  experiencing  a  marked  disturbance  of 
opinion  and  practice  in  the  matter  of  education. 
Other  periods  of  sharp  and  sudden  revolutionary 
action  have  occurred  in  this,  as  in  all  human 
affairs.  But  the  reasons  for  the  marked  character 
of  the  present  disturbance  are  not  difficult  of  state- 
ment. We  must  indeed  recognize  a  current  wide- 
spreading  dissatisfaction  with  everything  belonging 
to  the  existing  order,  which,  since  its  sources  are 
somewhat  hidden,  we  may  attribute  to  the  Zeitgeist 
—  the  inexplicable  or  unexplained  mental  drift  of 
the  age.  But  the  enormous  recent  growths  of  all 
the  sciences,  the  strong  practical  tendencies  which 
urge  the  cry  for  what  bears  visible  fruit  in  educa- 
tion, and  the  extremely  varied  interests  represented 
in  modern  culture,  are  the  more  obvious  causes  of 
the  prevalent  disturbance. 

Thus  far  it  has  been  the  schools  of  the  higher 
and  the  highest  learning  which  have  chiefly  felt 
the  pressure  of  the  oncoming  of  the  so-called  **  new 


54  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

education."  Under  this  pressure  these  schools 
have  largely  changed  the  nature,  increased  the 
amount,  and  developed  in  variety  the  studies  of 
their  curricula.  But  the  signs  are  only  too  plainly 
manifest  that  similar  demands  will  be  made  upon 
the  schools  which  lie  lower  down  in  the  stratum 
of  the  secondary  education. 

Indeed,  as  it  seems  to  me,  upon  no  other  stage 
of  education  is  the  burden  of  making  all  things 
"  new "  destined  to  fall  more  heavily  than  upon 
the  fitting-schools  of  the  country.  By  "  fitting- 
schools  "  I  mean  such  as  fit  pupils  for  the  colleges 
and  first-class  scientific  schools ;  and  any  educa- 
tional institution  or  more  private  enterprise,  in  so 
far  as  it  undertakes  such  preparatory  work,  is  en- 
titled to  be  called  by  this  name.  The  intermediate 
position  which  every  such  school  is,  by  its  very 
nature,  compelled  to  occupy  cannot  fail  to  confront 
it  in  the  near  future  with  a  number  of  most  serious 
problems.  Back  of  the  fitting-school,  or  rather  at 
its  base,  lies  the  primary  education,  with  all  its 
many  flaws,  accumulated  follies,  and  marked  de- 
ficiencies. In  this  earlier  stage  we  can  expect 
little  yielding  to  the  pressure  of  the  new  ideas  of 
compass,  variety,  and  choice  in  education.  The 
limits  of  change  possible  in  such  matters  for  the 
primary  schools  of  the  country  will  remain  com- 
paratively small.  No  variety  of  elective  courses, 
and  very  little  attempt  at  increased  breadth,  can 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  66 

enter  here.  Whatever  improvement  is  made  at 
this  stage  must  simply  be  in  the  way  of  securing 
more  thorough  and  genial  training  of  the  child  in 
the  few  subjects  with  which  all  education  begins, 
and  which  every  pupil  is  alike  required  to  know. 
These  schools,  then,  may  be  spoken  of  as  the 
nether-stones  of  our  mill  of  education ;  they  will 
stand  immovable  on  the  lower  side  of  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  preparatory  schools.  Or,  to  change  the 
figure  of  speech,  they  will  entail  upon  the  prepara- 
tory schools  all  the  deficiencies,  follies,  and  weak- 
nesses, of  which  they  are  themselves  seized. 

I  have  just  spoken  of  the  primary  schools,  with 
their  imperfect  but  very  stable  work  of  laying  the 
foundations  of  a  common  education,  as  the  nether 
mill-stone  on  which  the  fitting-schools  have  to  lie. 
But  on  the  other  side  are  the  colleges  and  higher 
scientific  schools  ;  these  have  for  years  been  stead- 
ily increasing  the  gross  amount  of  their  demands 
upon  the  fitting-schools,  and  now,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  new  ideas  of  education,  they  seem 
likely  to  impose  yet  heavier  burdens  by  a  corre- 
sponding increase  in  the  variety  of  these  demands. 
The  higher  institutions  may,  then,  not  inaptly,  be 
compared  to  the  upper  mill-stone  in  the  educa- 
tional mill.  What  is  to  prevent  the  preparatory 
schools  from  being  ground  fine  between  the  nether 
and  the  upper  stones  ?  And  yet  between  the  two  is 
the   natural   and    only   place    for   these    schools. 


66  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

Their  difl&culty  is  also  greatly  increased  by  the 
fact  that  they  can  scarcely  hold  most  of  their 
pupils  long  enough  to  do  a  thoroughly  good  work 
with  them.  The  fact  that  the  pupils  come  crude 
and  unformed  to  such  schools,  even  in  all  matters 
of  the  most  elementary  training,  is  coupled  with 
the  greatest  haste  on  the  part  of  the  same  pupils 
to  pass  through  the  intermediate  stage  of  educa- 
tion, into  the  freer,  larger,  and  more  varied  intel- 
lectual (and  social  and  athletic)  activity  of  the 
college. 

And  now  let  us  consider  separately  each  one  of 
the  three  kinds  into  which  the  general  grade  of 
schools  called  "  preparatory "  may  be  divided. 
The  case  of  the  public  high-school  as  a  fitting- 
school  is,  under  the  present  circumstances,  exceed- 
ingly peculiar.  Indeed,  the  very  existence  in  the 
future  of  the  public  high-school  in  this  country, 
not  only  as  a  fitting-school,  but  also  in  any  shape 
whatever,  cannot  be  predicted  with  much  confi- 
dence. But  at  present  the  attitude  and  relations 
of  the  different  schools  of  this  grade  toward  the 
colleges  vary  greatly.  In  a  few  public  schools  the 
preparation  given  for  college  or  for  the  scientific 
school  is  as  good  as  can  be  obtained  anywhere ;  in 
a  somewhat  larger  number  the  influences  are  on 
the  whole  in  favor  of  a  truly  liberal  education. 
But  in  a  very  large  and,  I  fear,  increasing  number 
of  cases,  especially  in  the  West,  the  influence  of 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  67 

the  public  schools  is  decidedly  adverse  to  a  truly 
liberal  education.  In  some  places  the  teachers  of 
the  public  schools  constitute  as  a  body  a  kind  of 
organized  monopoly,  secretly  or  actively  employed 
in  keeping  out  of  all  vacated  positions  every  col- 
lege-bred man,  and  exercising  all  possible  influence 
to  depreciate  a  college  education.  I  have  person- 
ally been  cognizant  of  a  system  of  public  education, 
inaugurated  in  a  large  city,  where,  in  the  higher 
grade  of  instruction  the  pupils  were  taught  at  the 
public  expense  to  dissect  cats,  to  accept  in  toto 
Bain's  psychology,  and  to  despise  the  Christian 
religion ;  but  not  one  of  them  could  learn  a  word 
of  Greek  without  the  expense  of  a  private  tutor. 

With  the  present  uncertainty  touching  the  ulti- 
mate fate  of  the  high-school  before  my  mind,  I 
have  only  two  remarks  to  make  upon  its  use  as  a 
fitting-school.  First:  The  tax-payers  and  voters 
are  not  likely  to  consent  much  further  to  multiply 
the  variety  of  optional  courses  to  be  taught  in  the 
high-schools  at  the  public  expense.  Second:  If 
they  are  not  forced  by  political  influences  greatly 
to  restrict  the  amount  and  variety  of  instruction 
which  they  at  present  aim  to  impart,  the  high- 
schools  of  the  better  quality  in  the  larger  places 
will  probably  see  the  propriety  of  continuing  in- 
struction in  the  classical  languages. 

In  speaking  of  the  public  high-school  as  a  fitting- 
school,  it  is  not  necessary  to  espouse  either  of  two 


68  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

tenable  theories  as  to  the  basis  on  which  our  sys- 
tem of  public  education  rests.  If  this  system  rests 
solely  on  the  principle  of  self-preservation,  one 
must  hold  that  the  high-schools  of  the  country,  as 
at  present  constituted,  have  no  right  to  existence 
whatever.  It  may  be  argued  that  the  preservation 
of  the  state  requires  that  every  citizen  should  have 
I  an  elementary  education ;  but  it  cannot  be  shown 
;  that  to  impart  a  little  algebra,  and  a  little  chem- 
istry, and  a  little  music,  and  a  little  drawing,  etc., 
is  a  measure  of  public  safety. 

But  suppose  one  to  hold  (as  I  have  little  hesita- 
tion in  holding)  that  states,  like  noble  individuals, 
and  like  God  himself,  should  not  be  satisfied  with 
doing  what  is  necessary  to  the  bare  preservation  of 
existence.  Let  our  theory  be,  that  states,  in  the 
long  run  and  wide  extent  of  their  being,  should 
strive  by  collective  action  to  nurture  intelligence, 
intellectual  variety,  and  beauty  of  multiform  and 
high  development,  in  as  many  as  may  be  of  their 
citizens.  This  they  should  do,  both  because  it 
pays  and  because  it  is  intrinsically  noble.  Let  the 
theory  of  public  education  be  a  generous  paternal 
theory.  But  even  with  this  theory  the  work  of  ex- 
pensive specialization  of  education  at  the  public 
cost  cannot  be  carried  beyond  a  certain  limit. 
That  limit,  it  is  the  opinion  of  most  thoughtful 
and  observing  persons,  has  been  already  reached, 
and  perhaps  passed.     Still,  it  is  my  contention  that 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  59 

if  the  generous  theory  is  to  triumph,  and  the  highly 
specialized  high-school  is  to  stay,  no  other  of  its 
courses  have  any  better  right  to  remain  than  those 
in  the  classical  languages.  There  is  no  good  rea- 
son why  a  high-school  should  teach  its  pupils  to 
dissect  cats,  to  accept  Bain's  or  any  other  psychol- 
ogy, to  read  music  and  draw  a  little,  etc.,  and  at 
the  same  time  banish  Greek  and  Latin  from  its 
curriculum. 

The  case  of  the  largest  and  best-equipped  acade- 
mies needs,  in  the  prospect  of  largely  increased 
demands  that  they  shall  furnish  a  more  extended 
and  varied  preparation  for  college,  scarcely  any  de- 
tailed consideration.  Such  schools  will  probably 
in  time  succeed  in  meeting  well  whatsoever  de- 
mands are  made  upon  them.  If  it  should  become 
necessary,  they  may  perhaps  develop  into  minia- 
ture colleges  with  curricula  composed  of  several 
score  of  different  courses,  among  which  the  youths 
who  frequent  them,  of  ages  from  twelve  to  eigh- 
teen, may  exercise  their  option.  That  they  would 
in  this  way  really  lay  more  satisfactorily  the  foun- 
dations of  a  truly  liberal  education,  or  even  of  one 
likely  to  fit  men  for  success  in  the  different  busi- 
nesses and  professions,  I  cannot  believe.  And 
surely  the  burden  of  meeting  these  new  demands 
would  be  very  great, — too  great  for  more  than  a 
very  few  of  the  more  fortunate  fitting-schools  to 
succeed  in  carrying  it. 


60  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

The  case  of  those  more  private  enterprises  which 
have  hitherto  furnished  some  of  the  best  candi- 
dates for  admission  to  our  colleges  requires  even 
less  of  detailed  consideration.  This  class  of  fit- 
ting-schools simply  cannot  comply  with  the  condi- 
tions required  by  the  full  and  consistent  develop- 
ment of  the  "  new  education."  The  demand  for 
instruction  in  German  or  French  staggers  a  school 
of  this  kind ;  the  demand  for  a  curriculum  includ- 
ing various  percentages  of  physics,  chemistry,  more 
advanced  mathematics,  etc.,  would  destroy  it. 

In  general  it  is  pretty  obvious  that  the  evolution 
of  the  new  education,  if  it  goes  on  in  the  directions 
in  which  its  present  indications  are  pointing,  will 
bring  upon  the  fitting-schools  of  the  country  such 
a  severe  application  of  the  laws  of  natural  selection 
that  only  a  few  of  the  fittest  to  survive  will  really 
succeed  in  surviving.  At  the  same  time,  if  they 
all  survived,  and  were  ultimately  found  reorganized 
in  a  form  best  to  exhibit  the  type  followed  by  this 
process,  the  result  would,  in  my  judgment,  be  far 
from  satisfactory.  For  the  true  principle  of  the 
secondary  education  does  not  call  for  the  offer  of  a 
great  variety  of  studies,  either  prescribed  or  elective^ 
but  for  a  thorough  and  long-continued  discipline  in 
a  very  few  judiciously  selected  and  representative 
studies. 

The  relief  which  the  fitting-schools  require,  in 
order  to  attain  their  true  place  in  the  system  of 


THE  FITTING^SCHOOL  61 

American  higher  education,  must  come  mainly 
from  the  accomplishment  of  two  results.  The  first 
of  these  is  the  careful  organization  of  our  entire 
system  of  education,  upon  the  basis  of  an  improved 
primary  education,  and  in  accordance  with  the 
principle  of  a  natural  twofold  division  of  courses 
of  prescribed  studies  in  the  secondary  education. 
The  second  is  a  closer  and  more  intelligent  alli- 
ance between  the  two  parts  of  the  secondary 
education. 

One  thing  greatly  to  be  desired  and  striven  after, 
as  affording  needed  relief  to  the  preparatory 
schools,  is  an  improvement  in  the  primary  educa- 
tion. No  one  acquainted  with  the  facts  needs  to 
be  told  how  faulty  is  the  knowledge  of  the  most 
elementary  subjects  possessed  by  the  average  child 
of  twelve  or  fourteen,  whether  he  has  been  trained 
in  a  public  or  a  private  school.  How  blundering 
is  his  use,  in  speech,  reading,  or  writing,  of  his 
mother-tongue!  With  how  little  real  notion 
of  what  our  good  planet  is,  in  structure  and 
aspect,  has  he  learned  long  lists  of  unpronounce- 
able names  of  mountains,  rivers,  and  cities  —  not 
to  say  hamlets  and  villages !  For  how  many  years 
has  he  struggled  with  the  fundamental  mysteries 
of  number,  and  spent  his  time  wearisomely  in 
doing  "sums,"  the  like  of  which  are  not  to  be 
found  in  real  life  upon  this  earth,  and,  as  we  trust, 
not  in  the  heavens  above!     And   yet  how  often 


62  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

does  he  stand  stupid  before  the  first  demand  to 
answer  any  practical  question  in  arithmetic  that 
requires  a  new  combination  of  the  "  rules  "  ! 

As  touching  the  general  interest  of  the  people, 
and  the  salvation  of  the  nation  —  so  far  as  its 
education  tends  to  its  salvation  —  nothing  is  more 
important  than  the  proper  and  efficient  conduct  of 
the  primary  education  ;  and,  as  well,  in  the  partic- 
ular interest  of  the  preparatory  schools,  few  things 
are  more  important. 

It  is,  however,  to  a  systematic  arrangement  of 
all  the  courses  of  instruction  taught  in  the  years 
of  the  secondary  education  that  I  look  with  most 
confidence  for  lessening  the  difficulties  and  enlarg- 
ing the  success  of  the  fitting-school.  At  present 
there  appears  to  be  no  little  danger  of  bringing  the 
same  trials  and  defects  upon  all  the  work  of  our 
academies  and  high-schools  as  those  under  which 
fell  the  orthodox  college  curriculum  of  some  years 
since.  But  are  there  no  principles  which  may 
enable  us  to  classify  the  bewildering  number  of 
possible  studies,  and  thus  to  select  a  few  which 
shall  alone  serve  to  form  the  staple  of  a  sound 
secondary  education  ?  I  believe  that  such  prin- 
ciples exist. 

There  are  four  classes  of  subjects  about  which 
the  human  mind  strives  to  obtain,  and  a  wise 
system  of  education  aims  to  impart,  a  truly  scien- 
tific knowledge.     These  are  :    first,  the  world  of 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  63 

"  nature,"  so  called  in  the  restricted  meaning  of 
the  term;  next,  language,  as  the  vehicle  of  the 
mind,  and  that  product  of  choice  thought  and 
language  which  is  literature ;  third,  man  as  mind, 
with  his  ethical,  religious,  aesthetical,  social,  and 
political  being  all  included  ;  and  fourth,  human 
history,  as  the  complex  resultant  of  all  the  inter- 
acting forces  involved  in  the  first  three  classes  of 
subjects.  Now  the  secondary  education  should 
impart  a  goodly  amount  of  clear  knowledge  of 
each  of  these  four  great  subjects  ;  and,  of  course, 
also  of  the  peculiar  mental  discipline  derived  from 
the  pursuit  of  each. 

It  should  be  at  once  admitted,  however,  that  the 
aptitudes  and  tastes  of  human  beings  differ,  and 
that  some  of  their  differences  are  very  persistent, 
radical,  and  sure  perpetually  to  recur  among  great 
multitudes  of  individuals.  It  can  perhaps  scarcely 
be  claimed  that  men  are  born  with  an  aptitude  and 
a  taste  for  geology,  for  astronomy,  or  for  psychol- 
ogy and  ethics.  But  it  seems  likely,  if  not  certain, 
that  some  men  do  more  naturally  incline  to  those 
pursuits  which  require  objective  observation,  to 
the  studies  of  external  nature,  and  others  to  the 
studies  of  the  mind  as  known  in  self-consciousness 
or  as  expressing  itself  in  language.  This  fact 
suggests,  at  least,  the  necessity  for  a  bifurcation  of 
the  prescribed  studies  of  the  secondary  stage  of 
education.     Not   far  from  the    beginning  of  this 


64  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

stage,  therefore,  I  would  have  an  opportunity  pro- 
vided for  a  division  in  the  courses  of  prescribed 
study.  On  the  one  hand,  I  would  have  the  em- 
phasis laid  upon  the  study  of  language  and  of  the 
so-called  humanities ;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
emphasis  should  be  laid  upon  mathematics  and 
the  natural  and  physical  sciences. 

But  one  thing  more  of  this  same  general  kind  is 
sadly  needed.  Perhaps  the  most  serious  defect  of 
the  system  of  liberal  education  now  prevalent  in 
this  country  is  its  lack  of  a  truly  progressive  char- 
acter. It  is  full  of  fits  and  starts.  It  is  too  dis- 
jointed and  fragmentary.  This  is  partly  because 
there  are  no  settled  principles  of  procedure,  fixing 
the  order  and  amounts  of  the  studies ;  and  partly 
because  there  is  no  power  which  can  secure 
teachers  that  know  precisely  what  they  are  ex- 
pected, fitted,  and  permitted  to  teach.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  the  different  years  of  school-life  too 
much  resemble  the  different  successive  sessions  of 
our  legislatures.  Milton  somewhere  describes  the 
process  of  legislation  as  "  hatching  a  lie  with  the 
heat  of  jurisdiction."  Fortunately,  the  process 
also  consists  in  killing  the  brood  of  lies  already 
hatched  by  previous  legislation.  Now  the  process 
of  education  in  this  country  is  by  no  means  so 
bad  in  this  regard  as  the  process  of  legislation ; 
but  in  certain  respects  the  former  too  much  re- 
sembles the  latter. 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  65 

Let  it  now  be  supposed  that  we  have  so  far  made 
progress  toward  the  millennimn  as  to  have  some 
of  these  evils  largely  remedied.  And  surely  this 
is  not  an  extravagant  or  hopeless  supposition. 
The  preparatory  schools  would  then  receive  their 
pupils,  thoroughly  well  instructed  in  certain  ele- 
mentary branches,  at  the  average  age  of  twelve  or 
thirteen  years ;  that  is  to  say,  their  pupils  would 
already  read,  write,  and  spell  in  the  English  lan- 
guage easily  and  correctly  ;  they  would  have  fin- 
ished arithmetic ;  they  would  have  learned  the 
principal  facts  touching  the  structure  and  position 
of  the  earth  as  a  planet,  and  touching  the  natural 
and  political  divisions  of  its  surface ;  they  would 
be  familiar  with  the  outlines  of  the  history  of  their 
own  country.  The  instruction  of  the  preparatory 
school  should  then  extend  over  a  period  of  about 
six  years  more ;  that  is,  from  about  the  age  of 
twelve  to  about  the  age  of  eighteen.  It  should  be 
thoroughly  organized,  not  with  a  view  to  furnish  a 
large  number  of  courses,  whether  prescribed  or 
elective,  but  with  a  view  to  impart  a  thorough  and 
progressive  training  in  a  few  great  and  representa- 
tive subjects.  It  should  be  bifurcated  so  as  to  pre- 
pare men  with  a  general  scientific  culture  which 
places  the  emphasis  either  upon  a  knowledge  of  lan- 
guage and  the  humanities,  or  upon  a  knowledge  of 
mathematics  and  the  facts  and  laws  of  nature. 

In  the  foregoing  way  it  would  be  possible,  I  con- 

5 


66  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

tend,  for  the  fitting-schools  of  the  country  to 
accomplish  much  more  and  better  work  than  is 
now  possible.  Indeed,  if  the  results  reasonable  to 
hope  for  in  the  future  were  secured,  these  schools 
could  send  out  their  pupils  as  well  educated  at 
eighteen  as  they  are  now  at  twenty,  that  is,  after 
being  two  years  in  college.  Thus  at  least  two 
entire  years  could  be  saved  in  the  secondary 
education. 

The  valid  objection  to  our  present  system  of 
education,  that  it  compels  young  men  to  wait  too 
long  before  entering  upon  their  more  strictly 
university  or  professional  studies,  would  be  ob- 
viated in  this  way.  The  study  of  theology,  law, 
and  medicine,  or  that  free  pursuit  of  science  which 
accords  with  the  university  idea,  could  thus  begin 
at  the  average  age  of  twenty,  instead  of  twenty- 
two  or  twenty-four,  as  the  case  now  is.  But  the 
university  and  professional  education  would  then 
rest  on  a  much  better  basis  than  is  now  laid  at 
a  later  age.  Moreover,  the  two  or  more  years 
of  time  which  would  be  saved  could  go  where 
they  ought  to  go  —  namely,  into  university  and 
professional  studies.  This  would  give  us  far 
better-equipped  teachers,  physicians,  lawyers,  and 
clergymen. 

There  is  one  other  matter  of  practical  impor- 
tance which  needs  much  careful  attention  in  order 
to  lessen  the  burdens  and  increase  the  efficiency 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  67 

of  the  fitting  schools  of  the  country.  A  closer 
and  more  intelligent  alliance  must  somehow  be 
effected  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  parts 
of  the  secondary  education.  As  the  case  now 
stands,  this  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the  col- 
leges and  advanced  scientific  schools  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  preparatory  schools  on  the  other 
hand,  must  enter  into  a  closer  and  more  intelligent 
alliance.  The  connections  existing  in  reality  be- 
tween the  instruction  of  the  last  years  of  the  pre- 
paratory school  and  the  instruction  of  the  first 
years  of  college  are  much  more  intimate  than 
those  existing  between  any  other  parts  of  our  en- 
tire system  of  education.  As  the  courses  of  instruc- 
tion in  almost  all  our  colleges  are  now  arranged, 
and  as  they  probably  will  be  arranged  for  a  long 
time  to  come,  the  youth  passes  from  the  prepara- 
tory school  to  the  college  with  no  break  whatever 
in  the  character  of  his  education.  He  continues 
the  study  of  the  same  subjects,  in  about  the  same 
way,  for  two  years  or  more  longer.  His  staple 
daily  tasks  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  secondary 
education  were  the  classical  languages  and  math- 
ematics ;  they  are  the  same  now  that  he  has 
achieved  the  distinction  of  passing  under  the  col- 
lege curriculum. 

And  indeed  there  is  no  good  reason  why  the 
character  of  the  instruction  should  be  greatly 
changed  when  the  youth  enters  college.     There  is 


68  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

nothing  magical  about  the  age  of  eighteen,  or 
about  the  fact  that  the  youth  has  got  into  a  school 
called  by  a  different  name  from  the  one  he  has 
left.  The  real  determining  factors  in  the  question 
of  the  subjects  and  the  method  of  his  study  are 
the  amount  of  his  maturity  and  of  his  general 
scientific  training. 

The  details  of  an  orderly  and  progressive  ar- 
rangement of  the  entire  course  of  study  during  the 
years  of  the  secondary  education  might  fitly  occupy 
the  attention  of  a  committee  of  experts.  Such  a 
committee  should  be  chosen  in  part  from  the  col- 
leges, and  in  part  from  those  fitting-schools  that 
are  most  influential  and  most  interested  in  the 
improvement  of  classical  and  scientific  study. 
Any  plan  proposed  by  such  a  committee  would  be 
an  incitement,  though  not  a  mandate,  to  better 
things.  Moreover,  it  would  be  likely  in  time  to 
commend  itself  to  other  colleges  and  fitting-schools 
not  participating  at  first  in  the  plan.  It  might 
result  in  affording  great  relief  to  the  fitting- 
schools,  and  in  largely  increasing  the  efiiciency  of 
their  instruction. 

In  conclusion  it  is  well  to  notice  that  some  such 
plan  as  has  just  been  proposed  seems  to  afford  the 
only  rational  relief  obtainable  from  the  growing 
evils  of  that  system  of  "  cramming  "  which  every- 
where prevails  in  modern  education.  A  "  bitter 
cry  "  is  being  raised  on  all  sides,  not  of  the  "  out- 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  69 

cast"  but  of  those  who  are  gathered  into  our 
elaborate,  hard-working  educational  institutions. 
Parents,  teachers,  pupils,  all  join  in  the  cry.  The 
excessive  specialization  of  modern  life  has  invaded 
the  schools  of  the  land  from  lowest  to  highest. 
There  is  no  doubt  of  the  existence  of  a  certain 
evil,  and  of  more  or  less  suffering  under  it.  But 
whence  is  the  remedy  to  come  ?  Not  from  fewer 
hours  of  study  per  day,  or  months  per  year,  or 
years  spent  during  the  entire  process  of  education. 
Certainly  not  from  attempting  to  impart  a  yet 
more  shallow  knowledge  of  the  great  number  of 
studies  already  entering  into  the  courses  of  instruc- 
tion in  all  our  schools.  The  remedy  must  be 
sought  in  the  removal  of  such  of  those  causes  of 
the  evil  as  admit  of  removal ;  and  these  are  mainly 
two :  the  variety  of  subjects  unnecessarily  crowded 
into  the  few  years  devoted  to  education,  and  the 
poor  character  of  the  instruction. 

That  much  of  the  school-time  of  youth  is  now 
wasted  through  excessive  variety  and  injudicious 
arrangement  of  the  studies,  and  on  account  of 
unskilful  teaching,  is  proved,  alas !  only  too  well, 
by  the  experience  of  every  intelligent  observer. 
An  illustration  or  two  may  not  be  out  of  place  at 
this  point.  Not  long  since,  an  educated  man  made 
the  attempt  to  assist  his  son  in  the  preparation  of 
the  daily  lesson  in  English  Grammar.  For  some 
time  the  boy,  who  was  twelve  years  of  age,  and 


70  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

nearly  ready  for  the  high-school,  had  been  settling 
into  a  condition  of  despair  over  this  particular 
study.  Meanwhile  the  boy's  use  of  the  English 
language  had  been,  under  the  influence  of  the  pub- 
lic school,  steadily  deteriorating.  After  rummag- 
ing a  big  text-book  for  more  than  an  hour  the 
father  succeeded  in  discovering  among  the  so- 
called  "  exceptions  "  what  he  considered  the  prob- 
ably correct  answers  to  most  of  the  questions 
composing  the  lesson  of  the  following  day.  These 
questions  were  afterward  taken  to  a  distinguished 
scholar,  a  student  and  teacher  of  language  and 
philology.  He  could  not  answer  them  in  any  terms 
which  would  have  satisfied  the  teacher  of  the  boy 
or  the  author  of  the  text-book  on  Grammar.  They 
were  then  shown  to  the  very  highest  authority  on 
such  subjects  to  be  found  in  this  country,  to  a 
gentleman  whose  attainments  in  the  science  of 
language  are  celebrated  by  the  world  of  scholars. 
His  answer  to  these  questions  was  a  strain  of  un- 
mixed invective  against  teacher,  text-book,  and 
school-system  which  could  tolerate  such  wasteful 
folly  in  instruction. 

But  snch  waste  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
primary  stage  of  education.  Some  years  ago  a 
professor  of  Greek  in  an  Eastern  institution  vis- 
ited the  recitation-room  of  a  Western  college, 
where  a  class  of  sophomores  were  reading  a  play 
of  Aristophanes.     Only  one  of  the  class  —  and  this 


THE  FITTING-SCHOOL  71 

one  a  young  lady  from  Massachusetts  —  made 
any  serious  attempt  at  a  correct  translation  of  the 
short  lesson  for  the  day.  The  teacher  was  evi- 
dently much  embarrassed  by  the  presence  of  the 
visitor,  and  at  a  loss  as  to  what  should  be  done 
with  his  pupils  or  their  lesson.  After  considerable 
floundering  he  seemed  to  gather  his  classical  learn- 
ing for  a  supreme  effort.  This  resulted  in  his  pro- 
pounding with  due  solemnity  the  following  ques- 
tion :  "Is  the  change  from  the  stem  math  to  the 
stem  manth  a  phonetic  or  a  dynamic  change  ? " 
The  class  stared,  but  remained  silent ;  the  teacher 
looked  even  more  embarrassed  than  before ;  the 
Eastern  professor  broke  into  a  cold  sweat  through 
fear  that  the  question  might  be  referred  to  him  — 
for  he  could  not  have  answered  it.  The  same 
question  was  asked  a  second  time  with  deliberate- 
ness  appropriate  to  so  grave  an  inquiry  ;  the  re- 
sult was  unchanged.  Then,  after  another  long 
pause,  this  episode  terminated  with  a  solemn  assev- 
eration from  the  teacher :  "  It  is  uncertain."  And 
so  the  hour  dragged  on.  In  all  probability,  no 
member  of  this  class  had  been  so  trained  as  to 
recognize  infallibly  the  simplest  grammatical  con- 
struction, or  to  translate  at  sight  the  simplest  pas- 
sages with  a  fair  degree  of  accuracy. 

Finally :  we  have  no  right  to  flatter  ourselves 
that  there  is  anything  peculiar  in  the  quality  of  the 
American  boy  which  will  enable  him  to  dispense 


72  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

with  that  long  and  patient  training  in  prescribed 
studies  which  does  so  much  for  the  German 
student  in  the  secondary  stage  of  his  education. 
Indeed,  there  is  so  much  flexibility  and  versatility 
in  the  present  character  of  the  American  boy,  and 
so  much  lack  of  stable  institutions  which  have  to 
do  with  education,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  pro- 
nounce with  confidence  upon  the  question  what 
his  typical  national  characteristics  will  prove  to 
be.  At  present  it  may  be  said  that  if  the  average 
pupil  in  this  country  is  bright,  enterprising,  and 
inquiring,  and  is  ready  with  a  commendable  reli- 
ance upon  his  own  resources  to  skip  from  branch 
to  branch  on  the  tree  of  learning,  and  to  pluck  at 
an  incredible  variety  of  the  flowers  of  knowledge 
in  a  short  space  of  time,  we  are  not  so  sure  that 
he  possesses  certain  other  equally  desirable  qual- 
ities. These  are  the  staying  qualities,  —  the  pati- 
ence, endurance,  and  steady  industry  on  which 
scholarship  depends. 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD 

There  are  few  things  more  astonishing  than  the 
rapidity  and  apparent  ease  with  which  periods  of 
conservative  thinking  and  practice  are  sometimes 
followed  by  great  and  even  radical  changes. 
Opinions  which  have  long  been  regarded  as  having 
the  necessary  quality  of  rational  principles  are  at 
such  times  contested  and  discarded;  practices 
that  have  come  to  be  associated  with  sacred  ideas 
of  duty  and  of  religion  are  deemed  unreasonable 
and  are  abandoned.  Indeed,  in  this  generation 
and  land  of  ours,  such  great  and  radical  changes 
have  become  so  frequent  as  almost  to  fail  of  excit- 
ing the  astonishment  they  really  merit.  Moreover, 
there  are  few  subjects  —  at  least  among  those  con- 
cerning which  the  world  has  commonly  been 
supposed  to  have  settled  conclusions  on  the  basis 
of  a  sufficient  experience  —  that  are  just  now  in  a 
more  precarious  condition  than  that  of  education. 
For  tens  of  centuries  the  so-called  civilized  world 
has  discussed  and  practised  touching  the  question 
how  best  to  train  the  young.  For  a  less  number 
of  centuries  a  considerable  part  of  the  civilized 
world  has  been  much  at  its  ease  in  the  gratifying 


76  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

belief  that  it  was  answering  the  question  wisely. 
But  now  the  New  Education,  as  brought  to  our 
notice  afresh  by  Professor  Palmer's  article  in  the 
November  number  of  this  Review,  claims  to  have 
made  beyond  doubt  the  discovery  that  the  answer 
hitherto  practically  given  must  be  almost  com- 
pletely reversed.  The  language  used  by  the  article 
alluded  to  is  not  a  bit  too  strong  to  express  the 
completeness  of  the  proposed  reversal.  The  New 
Education  has  avowedly  thrown  away  an  "  estab- 
lished principle  ;  "  has  organized  a  college  "  from 
the  top  almost  to  the  bottom  on  a  wholly  different 
plan  ;  "  has  wrought  "  a  revolution  like  that  in  the 
England  of  Victoria." 

It  would  be  an  error  to  suppose,  however,  that 
even  so  revolutionary  a  change  in  education  should 
be  denied  fair  consideration,  on  the  ground  that 
what  seems  to  contradict  a  well-nigh  universal 
experience  cannot,  of  course,  be  wise  and  true.  If 
the  New  Education  should  finally  come  to  have 
matters  according  to  its  liking  in  all  our  educa- 
tional institutions,  such  a  change  of  custom  would 
not  be  wholly  without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of 
the  subject.  It  would  perhaps  not  be  greater  than 
the  change  which  took  place  in  the  culture  of 
Greek  youth  when  the  Sophists  captivated  them 
all  by  adding  rhetoric  and  dialectic  to  the  ancient 
disciplines  of  music,  mathematics,  and  gymnastics. 
Nor  can  it  be  wholly  forgotten  that  the  ancient 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  77 

classics  only  a  few  centuries  since  turned  out  much 
of  the  theology  and  metaphysics  from  the  univer- 
sities of  Europe,  in  order  to  make  a  place  for 
themselves  as  the  new  learning  of  the  day.  The 
truth  is,  that  poetry,  mathematics,  and  philosophy 
are  about  the  only  branches  of  human  knowledge 
that  have  everywhere  and  in  all  times  been  re- 
garded as  studies  indispensable  to  what  the  civilized 
world  has  agreed  to  call  culture.  Yet  these  are 
perhaps  the  studies  which  are  at  present  least 
prized  of  all  by  that  class  of  youth  who  are  fired 
with  the  ambition  to  choose  wholly  for  themselves 
a  training  suited  to  the  so-called  "  practical  life  " 
of  business,  politics,  journalism,  etc. 

Accordingly,  we  are  not  among  those  who,  when 
startling  new  views  are  proposed  in  opposition  to 
ancient  convictions  and  customs,  refuse  to  tolerate 
the  possibility  of  such  views  being  largely  or 
mainly  trustworthy.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
advocates  of  the  New  Education  can  scarcely  expect, 
in  the  exercise  of  fairness  and  good  judgment,  that 
a  scheme  which  they  admit  to  be  no  less  than 
"  revolutionary  "  should  be  hastily  caught  at  for  its 
novelty  by  thoughtful  educators.  Professor  Palm- 
er's description  of  the  Harvard  method  calls  upon 
us  all  to  discard  many  cherished  convictions ;  we 
may  justly  expect  it  to  enforce  its  call  with  many 
and  valid  reasons.  It  asks  for  a  large  faith ;  we 
may  ask  of  it  some  assured  pledge  that  the  faith 


78  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

will  not  be  misplaced.  It  seems  to  me,  then,  that 
little  fault  could  be  found  with  any  educator  of 
youth,  whose  mind  worked  in  a  moderately  conserv- 
ative fashion,  if  he  should  decline  to  estimate 
highly  the  detailed  facts  which  make  up  the  very 
limited  experience  of  the  New  Education.  In 
other  words,  I  do  not  think  that  the  trial  of  the 
Harvard  method  is  yet  old  enough  to  be  critically 
weighed  and  pronounced  upon.  It  is  true  that  the 
elective  system  was  adopted  there,  to  a  certain 
small  extent,  as  long  ago  as  1825.  But  until  1879 
"  some  prescribed  study  remained "  for  juniors ; 
till  1884  for  sophomores.  During  only  a  single  year 
have  freshmen  in  Harvard  College  chosen  a  major- 
ity of  their  own  studies.  But  it  is  precisely  to 
making  all  of  the  last  two  years  of  the  college 
course  elective,  and  to  giving  any  considerable 
play  to  the  elective  system  in  the  earlier  years, 
that  the  opponents  of  the  Harvard  method  have 
most  decided  objections.  For  it  by  no  means 
follows  that,  because  some  choice  of  his  own  studies 
is  good  for  the  young  man  of  twenty-one  or  twenty- 
two  years,  therefore  the  entire  control  of  his 
studies  should  be  committed  to  the  boy  from  eigh- 
teen to  twenty.  As  to  whether  it  is  wise  that 
freshmen  and  sophomores  should  be  placed  com- 
pletely under  the  elective  system,  Harvard  itself 
has,  then,  barely  two  years  of  experience ;  and  for 
the  upper  classes   only   a  few  years   more.     No 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  79 

graduates  of  the  New  Education  have  yet  gone  out 
mto  the  world.  But  it  will  surely  take  more  than 
one  whole  generation  to  prove  what  the  real  and 
final  outcome  of  so  profound  changes  in  education 
is  to  be.  Is  it  ungenerous  toward  progress  when 
we  declare  that  the  experience  of  a  single  educa- 
tional institution  for  scarcely  a  moiety  of  its  four 
years'  course  —  whatever  that  experience  may  have 
been  —  is  a  very  inadequate  proof  of  the  desirable- 
ness of  a  "  revolution  "  in  education  ?  We  cannot 
sample  the  orchard  by  chewing  the  blossoms  of  a 
single  tree. 

Let  it  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  there  is 
reason  to  shrink  from  the  detailed  examination  of 
the  statistics  with  which  Professor  Palmer  has 
argued  the  cause  of  the  New  Education.  For  one, 
I  heartily  thank  him  for  them.  They  are  so  clearly 
and  fairly  presented,  and  so  courteously  urged, 
that  nothing  more  in  that  direction  can  be  for  the 
present  demanded.  I  am  especially  glad  to  have 
the  affair  of  passing  his  article  in  critical  review 
take  so  tangible  a  shape.  It  gives  me  a  coveted 
opportunity  to  bring  forward  corresponding  statis- 
tics which  have  not  been  formed  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Harvard  method.  It  thus  becomes  a 
task  definitely  set  me  by  the  editors  of  the  "  An- 
dover  Review"  to  compare  one  college  with  an- 
other. I  need  not  apologize,  to  remove  any  of  that 
odium  which  almost  inevitably  attaches  itself  to 


80  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

such  work  of  comparison.  The  question  of  fact  is 
raised  by  the  previous  article  commending  the  so- 
called  New  Education  :  How  does  it  work  ?  What 
better  way  to  answer  the  question  thus  raised  than 
to  compare  the  tabulated  results  (so  far  as  such 
results  can  be  tabulated)  of  the  new  method  with 
those  reached  by  a  somewhat  different  method  ? 
I  select  Yale  to  compare  with  Harvard,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  for  I  am  a  teacher  at  Yale,  and  can  most 
easily  obtain  trustworthy  statistics  concerning  edu- 
cational affairs  in  my  own  college.  Moreover, 
there  is  a  certain  fitness  in  comparing  these  two 
great  institutions.  Harvard  is  avowedly  the  only 
thorough  representative  of  what  Professor  Palmer 
calls  the  New  Education ;  Yale  is  certainly  the 
leading  representative  of  those  more  conservative 
tendencies  in  education  to  which  what  is  called 
"  new "  is  understood  to  be  opposed.  I  shall, 
therefore,  follow  his  argument  from  experience, 
point  by  point,  showing  how  the  results  of  experi- 
ence here  compare  with  those  obtained  at  Harvard 
under  its  new  method. 

Before  bringing  forward  statistics,  and  thus  put- 
ting myself  into  the  attitude  of  an  antagonist  or 
carping  critic  toward  Professor  Palmer,  I  crave  the 
opportunity  of  expressing  my  sympathy  and  agree- 
ment with  him  on  several  important  points.  It  is 
true  that  the  world  of  science  and  learning  has 
changed  and  enlarged  with  wonderful  rapidity  of 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  81 

late.  It  is,  of  course,  also  true  that  both  the  mat- 
ter and  the  method  of  education  must  change  ac- 
cordingly. The  literary  communication  of  nations 
is  now  such  that  no  man  can  be  the  most  success- 
ful student  of  any  subject  who  is  not  able  to  use  at 
least  two  or  three  of  those  languages  in  which  the 
results  of  modern  researches  are  chiefly  recorded. 
The  ancient  classics  can  never  again  hold  the  same 
relatively  great  or  exclusive  place  in  the  study  of 
language,  or  as  mental  discipline.  The  new 
science,  psychological  and  political,  no  less  than 
physical,  will  certainly  have  its  rights  regarded. 
The  subject-matter  of  education  must  change.  It 
is  also  true  that  methods  of  education  must  change. 
The  modern  teacher  stands  in  a  different  relation 
to  his  pupils  from  that  held  by  the  teacher  of  by- 
gone days.  He  has  a  larger  work  than  that  of 
giving  out  tasks  ;  he  must  rely  on  something  more 
in  his  hearers  than  their  reverence  for  his  ex-offieio 
dignity  and  their  readiness  to  accept  his  ipse  dixit. 
He  must  also  stand  in  relations  towards  his  pupils 
that  are  different  from  those  which  formerly  ob- 
tained with  respect  to  their  discipline  in  manners 
and  morals. 

But  it  is  simple  matter  of  fact  that  all  our  most 
respectable  educational  institutions  are  recogniz- 
ing the  facts  and  truths  to  which  I  have  just  al- 
luded, and  are  recognizing  them  in  practical  ways. 
Surely  no  most  excessive  admirer  of  Harvard  and 

6 


82  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

its  methods  would  think  of  denying  that  other  col- 
leges also  have  made  a  large  place  for  the  new 
sciences,  are  using  improved  ways  of  instruction 
with  fresh  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  both  teachers 
and  pupils,  and  have  their  eyes  and  hearts  open  to 
all  that  is  going  on  in  the  wide  world  of  science 
and  learning.  No  one  acquainted  with  Yale  at 
present,  as  compared  with  Yale  fifty  or  even 
twenty-five  years  since,  could  for  a  moment  doubt 
that  much  of  its  education  is  worthy  of  being  called 
"  newP 

With  the  ethical  spirit  of  Professor  Palmer's  ar- 
ticle I  am  also  in  the  fullest  accord ;  he  meets  a 
hearty  response  from  the  Yale  method  when  he 
proposes  to  measure  the  success  of  education  by 
standards  that  are  strong  and  high  in  an  ethical 
way.  I,  too,  understand  the  end  of  education  to 
be  not  merely  information  in  certain  subjects  — 
few  or  many  —  of  scientific  or  historical  research, 
but,  also  and  chiefly,  control  of  the  faculties,  and 
vigorous,  reasonable,  symmetrical  use  of  them  for 
the  attainment  of  worthy  ideals.  And  if  he  will 
show  me  that  the  so-called  New  Education  really 
does  "  uplift  character  as  no  other  training  can,  and 
through  influence  on  character  ennoble  all  methods 
of  teaching  and  discipline,"  I  will  not  wait  to  be 
his  ardent  convert.  It  is  precisely  because  of  my 
fears  that  it  will  not  accomplish  this  in  the  majority 
of  cases  that  I  am  reluctant  to  accept  the  methods 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  83 

it  proposes.  But  Professor  Palmer  advances  the 
statistical  proofs  that  in  very  truth  the  method  has 
already  wrought  to  this  desirable  and  noble  end  at 
Harvard.  We  are  brought  around,  then,  to  his  sta- 
tistics in  our  effort  to  come  into  the  fullest  possible 
sympathy  of  view  with  his  opinions.  Do  the  sta- 
tistics show,  or  even  tend  to  show,  the  superiority 
of  the  method  of  education  in  force  at  Harvard,  as 
compared  with  that  still  employed  at  Yale  ?  I  am 
prepared  to  affirm  that  they  do  not.  I  am  prepared 
to  affirm  that,  in  all  the  matters  which  can  fairly 
be  said  to  be  direct  desirable  results  of  the  methods 
of  teaching  employed  by  the  two  institutions,  the 
figures  speak  rather  against  than  for  the  New  Edu- 
cation. The  various  items  of  proof  will  be  arranged 
for  consideration  in  the  order  which  seems  most 
convenient,  but  all  the  points  made  by  Professor 
Palmer  will  be  covered  before  leaving  the  subject. 

Among  the  various  proofs  of  experience  that  the 
New  Education  is  successful  we  find  the  enlarge- 
ment and  improvement  of  the  prevalent  student 
idea  of  a  "  gentleman."  Students  are  proverbially 
influenced  by  consideration  for  "  good  form."  It 
is  no  longer  "  good  form  "  at  Harvard  to  haze  fresh- 
men, smash  windows,  disturb  lecture-rooms,  etc. 
Such  things  as  these  are  largely,  if  not  wholly,  at 
an  end.  Now  the  growth  away  from  barbarous  and 
rowdyish  customs  has  characterized  all  the  colleges 
of  the  land,  —  some  of  them  to  a  greater,  some  to 


84  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

a  less  degree.  A  marked  improvement  in  these 
regards  has  gone  on  at  Yale,  until  the  more  offen- 
sive forms  of  such  misbehavior  are  matters  of 
tradition  and  of  the  past.  It  could  be  shown  by 
all  the  testimony  possible  to  obtain  on  such  a  point 
that  both  the  major  and  the  minor  morals  of  the 
students  have  steadily  improved  for  the  last  twenty- 
five  or  more  years.  The  relations  between  the 
Faculty  and  the  students,  instead  of  the  old  feeling 
of  antagonism  or  division  of  interest,  are  cordial 
and  tending  to  more  and  more  of  friendliness  and 
co-operative  work.  This  is  perfectly  well  under- 
stood by  the  students  themselves  ;  it  is  remarked 
upon  in  their  conversation  and  in  the  papers  which 
they  publish.  But  I  should  not  for  a  moment  sup- 
pose that  the  same  kind  of  improvement  had  not 
taken  place  —  at  least  to  some  considerable  degree 
—  in  other  institutions  of  learning ;  nor  should  I 
venture  to  attribute  it  largely  to  any  peculiar 
method  of  education,  either  as  partly  elective  or  as 
largely  prescribed.  Such  improvement  is  chiefly 
the  result  of  the  steady  change  in  our  civilization 
which  has  been  going  on,  of  better  manners  every- 
where, of  the  gradual  decay  of  barbarous  and  med- 
izeval  antagonisms,  of  the  spread  of  kindliness  and 
intelligence.  It  is  also  due,  in  special,  to  the  fact 
that  teachers  and  parents  take  a  different  attitude 
toward  the  young  under  their  charge,  and  that  the 
young  themselves  have  a  wider  outlook  on  life.    It 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  85 

is  also  due  to  the  fact  that  college  Faculties  have 
relaxed  in  many  of  their  old  severities  and  petty 
exactions,  and  have  taken  the  young  men  —  whether 
by  some  scheme  devised  or  by  the  common  consent 
of  all  hearts  and  wills  —  more  into  their  confidence. 
It  is  also  due  to  the  influence  of  well-regulated 
athletic  sports,  which  provide  an  outlet  for  the  ex- 
penditure of  that  surplus  vitality  in  which  youth 
rejoices.  The  New  Education  has  no  monopoly  in 
these  improvements.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  it  can 
show  any  advantage  in  these  matters  as  compared 
with  that  blending  of  things  new  and  old  which  is 
prevalent  at  Yale. 

It  is  also  claimed  that  the  New  Education  has  the 
stamp  of  approval  in  the  special  amount  of  popular 
favor  which  it  has  secured.  It  is  shown  that  the 
period  during  which  the  new  method  has  been  on  trial 
has  been  one  of  "  unexampled  prosperity  "  for  Har- 
vard, its  representative.  Rich  men  have  signified 
their  acceptance  of  it  by  generous  gifts.  Parents 
and  sons  have  ratified  the  system,  as  may  be  seen  by 
the  increase  of  numbers  which  has  taken  place  un- 
der its  working.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  last 
fifteen  years  exhibit  a  splendid  record  of  growth  at 
Harvard,  both  in  numbers  and  in  resources.  But 
it  will  scarcely  be  claimed  by  Professor  Palmer  that 
all  the  generous  gifts  it  has  received  have  been  de- 
signed to  set  the  seal  of  approval  from  their  donors 
upon  its  peculiar  methods.     Other  sums  of  money, 


86  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

even  larger,  have  been  given  to  found  and  rear  in- 
stitutions by  rich  men  who  had  no  ideas,  either  new 
or  old,  which  they  desired  to  perpetuate  in  a  pecu- 
liar college  system.  Other  colleges  which  have  not 
adopted  the  Harvard  system  —  except  so  far  as 
some  elective  courses  in  a  college  curriculum  may 
be  said  to  be  an  adoption  of  the  system  —  have 
also  received  bountiful  gifts.  During  the  last  four- 
teen years  the  amount  of  gifts  made  to  the  univer- 
sity of  Yale,  either  already  delivered  over  or  in  the 
process  of  delivery  by  executors,  exceeds  $2,066,000 ; 
of  this  sum  $928,400  stands  upon  the  treasurer's 
books  as  cash  paid  in  to  the  treasury  since  1871 ; 
the  remainder  has  gone  into  the  "  plant "  of  the 
university.  During  the  same  time  the  sum  of  more 
than  $460,000  additional  has  been  secured  by  be- 
quest, to  be  paid  into  its  treasury  on  the  termina- 
tion of  certain  lives.  Meanwhile,  its  library  has 
increased  by  83,000  volumes.  This  more  than  two 
and  a  half  millions  may  not,  indeed,  equal  the  sum 
given  to  Harvard  during  the  same  period.  But  it 
bears  comparison  with  that  sum  so  well  as  to  raise 
the  inquiry  whether  the  prestige  of  the  New  Educa- 
tion with  the  long  purses  of  the  country  is  beyond 
question. 

The  increase  of  students  is  a  more  direct  and 
appreciable  argument.  It  certainly  does  go  for 
something  in  showing  how  the  popular  favor  is 
setting,  at  least  for  the  immediate  time.     I  can 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  87 

readily  see  how  young  men  of  eighteen,  if  left  to 
themselves,  would  incline  to  give  the  authority  of 
their  presence  to  the  methods  of  the  New  Educa- 
tion. Still,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the 
large  accessions  to  Harvard  for  the  past  twenty- 
five  years  signify  all  that  they  might  seem  to  at 
first  sight.  During  the  same  period  other  institu- 
tions, not  adopting  its  method,  have  likewise  had 
remarkable  growth;  on  other  grounds  than  its 
adoption  Yale  has  constantly  grown  in  numbers 
during  this  period.  Its  growth  as  estimated  by 
the  average  number  of  undergraduates,  exclusive 
of  special  students  (which  I  suppose  Professor 
Palmer  also  excluded  from  his  estimate),  has  been 
as  follows:  1861-65,  533;  1866-70,  610;  1871- 
75,  704;  1876-80,  745;  1880-84,  792.  It  should 
also  be  said  that  probably  no  other  college  has 
rejected  so  large  a  per  cent,  of  candidates  for  ad- 
mission, or  sent  away  so  many  for  failing  to  keep 
up  to  its  standard  of  scholarship. 

Even  the  most  recent  statistics  throw  still  more 
doubt  upon  the  argument  from  the  number  of 
students.  It  is  found,  by  counting  the  under- 
graduates in  the  last  Harvard  catalogue,  that  591 
of  the  1061,  or  more  than  55  per  cent.,  are  from 
the  State  in  which  the  college  is  situated.  Only 
247,  or  less  than  32  per  cent.,  of  the  undergradu- 
ates of  Yale  are  from  Connecticut.  Not  only  rela- 
tively but  absolutely,  more  men  come  to  the  latter 


88  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

than  to  the  former  institution  from  outside  of  the 
State  in  which  it  is  situated.  If,  then,  Massa- 
chusetts may  be  said  to  sanction  the  New  Educa- 
tion, as  yet  the  country  at  large  cannot  be  said  to 
have  done  so.     It  is  not  yet  cosmopolitan. 

But  we  shall  better  appreciate  the  statistical 
argument  for  and  against  the  New  Education  if  we 
compare  figures  concerning  matters  that  may  more 
fairly  be  held  to  indicate  its  direct  results ;  and 
among  them,  first,  the  amount  of  regular  attention 
given  by  the  students  to  the  college  exercises,  to 
lectures  and  recitations.  Professor  Palmer  thinks 
it  creditable  to  the  method  he  advocates  that,  by 
actual  count,  under  a  wholly  voluntary  and  wholly 
elective  system,  the  last  senior  class  at  Harvard 
"  had  cared  to  stay  away  "  only  two  exercises  per 
week  out  of  twelve,  —  that  is,  rather  more  than 
sixteen  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  Now  the  point  of 
fidelity  and  regularity  is  of  such  supreme  impor- 
tance in  the  life  of  the  student  that  I  have  taken 
especial  pains  to  secure  its  statistics  here ;  the 
reader  is  requested  thoughtfully  to  compare  them 
with  the  statement  of  Professor  Palmer.  At  Yale 
this  term,  for  the  seven  weeks  for  which  the  record 
is  complete,  the  average  per  cent,  of  absence  in  the 
class  of  '89  has  been  3.7  per  cent. ;  that  is,  the 
average  freshman  of  the  Academical  Department 
has  been  present  15.4  out  of  a  possible  16  of  his 
weekly  recitations.     This  record  includes  absences 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  89 

from  all  causes  whatever ;  it  includes  48  absences 
due  to  the  illness  of  one  man  for  three  weeks,  and 
several  other  cases  of  absence  due  to  illness  of  the 
student  or  of  his  friends.  The  record  of  the 
sophomore  class  for  the  same  period  is  even 
slightly  better ;  for  the  average  sophomore  has 
attended  14.5  exercises  per  week  out  of  a  possible 
15  required.  The  absences  of  this  class  have  been 
only  slightly  more  than  three  and  a  third  per  cent. 
It  should  further  be  mentioned  that  under  the 
rules  all  tardiness  at  a  recitation  beyond  five 
minutes  and  all  egresses  are  counted  as  absences. 
Moreover,  if  the  student  chooses  to  be  present 
without  responsibility  for  being  questioned,  he  has 
the  privilege  of  doing  so  at  the  expense  of  one  of 
his  "  allowed  "  absences.  In  the  aggregate  a  con- 
siderable number  avail  themselves  of  this  privilege. 
For  an  example  of  diligent  attention  to  the  busi- 
ness of  learning,  I  think  it  would  be  hard  to  find 
anything  superior  to  the  following:  On  a  recent 
week  (in  November)  there  were  only  eight  absences 
in  a  division  of  34  men,  and  three  of  these  were  so- 
called  "  cuts,"  when  the  student  was  present  but 
not  reciting.  That  is  to  say,  the  real  absences 
were  for  that  one  division  during  the  period  of  a 
week  only  a  trifle  over  one  per  cent.  It  should  be 
remembered,  also,  that  no  excuses  are  now  given 
for  sports,  attentions  to  friends,  minor  ailments, 
etc. ;  and  yet  the  average  Yale  freshman  or  sopho- 


90  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

more  does  not  avail  himself  of  more  than  about 
three  fourths  of  the  six  absences  allowed  him  dur- 
ing a  term  to  cover  all  such  cases.  Nor  should  it 
be  inferred  that  the  regularity  of  these  seven  weeks 
is  special  to  any  large  extent,  as  being  due  to 
causes  prevalent  during  the  earlier  part  of  the  fall 
term  of  1885.  It  is  likely  that  the  record  for  the 
entire  term  would  make  even  a  better  showing  ;  the 
spendthrifts  who  incur  most  absences  on  the  whole, 
as  a  rule,  use  up  their  "  cuts  "  early  in  the  term. 
The  officer  in  charge  of  the  records  assures  me 
that,  on  looking  over  them  cursorily,  he  concludes 
that  the  worst  terms  for  some  years  past  would  not 
show  more  than  five  per  cent,  of  absences  in  these 
classes.  The  amount  of  absence  in  the  two  upper 
classes  is  somewhat  greater.  There  is  good  reason 
for  this.  The  junior  and  senior  classes  contain 
more  men  who  are  of  age,  who  therefore  go  home 
to  vote,  have  private  business  out  of  New  Haven  to 
which  they  must  attend,  etc.  Under  the  rules  of 
the  college  they  are  also  given  one  third  more  of 
"  allowed  absences  "  than  the  lower  classes,  —  that 
is  to  say,  eight  in  a  term  instead  of  six.  But  for 
all  causes  combined,  exclusive  of  a  few  cases  of  sick- 
ness lasting  more  than  a  week,  the  irregularity  of  the 
junior  class  during  the  period  under  consideration 
was  less  than  five  and  a  half  per  cent. ;  that  of  the 
senior  class  only  a  trifle  more  than  six  per  cent. 
A  comparison  of  the  two  systems  as  actually  at 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  91 

work  in  Harvard  and  in  Yale  shows,  then,  this 
remarkable  fact :  The  irregularity  of  the  average 
Harvard  student  is  from  a  little  less  than  three  to 
about  five  times  as  great  as  that  of  the  average 
Yale  student.  The  former  is  off  duty,  either  from 
choice  or  compulsion,  rather  more  than  sixteen  per 
cent,  of  his  time  ;  the  latter  from  less  than  three 
and  a  third  to  a  trifle  more  than  six  per  cent. 
Such  discrepancy  is  remarkable.  In  my  opinion, 
it  is  highly  significant  as  respects  the  working  of 
the  two  systems.  Let  the  reader  inquire  of  him- 
self what  its  significance  must  be  as  regards 
preparation,  both  intellectual  and  ethical,  for  the 
work  of  life.  Let  any  man  in  business  or  in  pro- 
fessional life  ask  himself  this  question  :  What  sort 
of  work  should  I  do,  what  success  have,  if  I  and 
my  employees  were  absent  sixteen  per  cent,  of  the 
entire  time  allotted  for  work  ?  More  particularly 
with  reference  to  the  life  of  education,  let  each  one 
interested  in  the  problem  propose  such  questions 
as  follow :  What  service  would  the  public  school  or 
academy  render  which  permitted  an  average  non- 
attendance  of  its  pupils  amounting  to  sixteen  per 
cent,  of  the  entire  time ;  or,  in  other  words,  re- 
duced the  school-days  of  the  week  to  about  four 
in  number  ?  Is  there  any  adequate  reason  why  a 
youth  who  is  being  trained  to  a  life  of  faithful  and 
patient  work  should,  for  a  term  of  four  years  in 
the  most  critical  period  of  his  life,  enjoy  a  freedom 


92  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

from  restraints  which  belongs  to  the  well-regulated 
discipline  of  neither  man  nor  boy  ?  The  average 
pupil  under  the  New  Education,  if  he  has  been 
properly  fitted  for  college,  has  probably  had  no 
such  liberty  allowed  him  hitherto  ;  unless  he  leads 
after  leaving  college  a  life  of  self-indulgence  in- 
stead of  successful  industry,  he  will  never  have 
such  liberty  again.  Is  there  any  magic  of  morals 
which  makes  it  best  that  he  should  for  this  par- 
ticular quaternion  be  put  "  upon  honor  "  in  a  man- 
ner different  from  that  to  which  the  rest  of  the 
working  world  is  compelled  ?  But  it  is  at  best  the 
average  man  at  Harvard  who  is  off  duty  sixteen 
per  cent,  of  his  time ;  what,  then,  must  be  the 
amount  of  irregularity  characterizing  the  more 
faithless  half  or  quarter  of  each  class  ? 

I  have  no  hesitation  whatever  in  saying  that  it 
would  be  quite  impossible  for  students  to  pass 
through  Yale  College  who  did  not  attend  more 
regularly  to  their  duties  than  the  average  senior 
under  the  New  Education.  Such  students  probably 
could  not  finish  a  single  year.  It  must  not  be  sup- 
posed, however,  that  attendance  is  exacted  of  the 
Yale  student  in  such  manner  as  to  crush  out  all 
spontaneity  of  impulse,  and  make  both  recitation- 
room  and  teacher  repulsive.  Doubtless  there  is  a 
considerable  percentage  of  men  in  every  college 
who  find  all  mental  work  a  hardship  ;  with  a  few, 
the  more  and  the  more  regular  the  work,  the  greater 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  93 

their  sense  of  hardship.  But  with  the  body  of 
students  at  Yale  the  case  is  not  so.  Their  spirit 
will  compare  most  favorably  with  that  which  Pro- 
fessor Palmer  describes  as  characteristic  of  the 
New  Education.  That  they  are  not  merely  driven 
by  severe  rules  to  their  tasks  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  average  Yale 
student  does  not  avail  himself  of  all  his  allowed 
absences.  It  is  also  shown  by  the  fact  that  a  con- 
siderable percentage  of  men,  especially  in  the  upper 
classes,  are  ready  to  take  over-hours  of  work  ;  this 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  required  number  of 
recitations  at  Yale  is  fifteen  (or  sixteen)  per  week, 
instead  of  twelve  as  at  Harvard.  It  is  further 
shown  by  the  large  use  which  the  students  make 
of  the  libraries.  On  this  point,  then,  let  us  com- 
pare facts  with  the  New  Education.  Professor 
Palmer  considers  it  a  triumph  for  "the  system" 
that  the  extent  to  which  the  college  library  is  con- 
sulted by  the  undergraduates  has  increased  from 
fifty-six  per  cent,  in  1860-61  to  eighty-five  per 
cent,  in  1883-84.  But  for  years  past  the  average 
Yale  student,  so  far  as  the  statistics  of  the  respec- 
tive libraries  show,  has  been  more  a  reader  of 
books  than  his  Harvard  fellow  under  the  present 
high  estate  reached  by  the  New  Education.  Dur- 
ing the  year  selected  for  comparison  (1883-84) 
the  undergraduates  of  Yale  drew  from  "  Linonian 
and  Brothers"  alone  18,440  volumes;  all  but  76 


94  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

—  or  eighty-eight  per  cent.  —  of  the  academical 
students,  and  all  but  38  —  or  eighty-two  per  cent. 
of  the  scientific  students  used  this  collection  of 
books.  More  than  eighty-six  per  cent.,  that  is,  of 
all  the  undergraduates  drew  out  to  the  average 
amount  of  26  volumes  each.  As  to  the  quality  of 
the  books  drawn,  no  record  is  easily  obtainable  for 
this  particular  year ;  but  the  record  for  a  previous 
year  shows  that  more  than  two  thirds  were  not 
books  of  fiction.  Statistics  just  published  for  the 
last  year  show  that  the  academical  sophomores 
alone  drew  4,139  volumes  from  this  library ;  but 
the  sophomores  at  Yale  are  denied  all  benefit  from 
the  New  Education.  The  use  of  Linonian  and 
Brothers'  Library  by  the  undergraduates,  however, 
has  been  relatively  decreasing,  on  account  of  the 
large  increase  in  the  use  of  other  collections  of 
books  more  recently  placed  at  their  convenient 
disposal.  Noteworthy  among  such  collections  are 
the  loan  libraries  belonging  to  some  of  the  de- 
partments of  instruction, —  especially  of  political 
science,  history,  etc.  Add  to  all  these  items  the 
increasing  use,  by  consultation  on  the  spot  and 
otherwise  (of  which  statistics  are  not  easily  attain- 
able), of  the  main  college  library,  and  we  have  an 
amount  of  voluntary  literary  activity  among  the 
Yale  undergraduates  which  certainly  need  not 
shrink  from  comparison  with  the  best  results  of 
the  Harvard  system. 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  95 

Professor  Palmer  says  truly  that  "  the  charge  of 
*  soft '  courses  is  the  stock  objection  to  the  elective 
system."  He  is,  therefore,  at  considerable  pains 
to  show  how  wisely  the  juniors  and  seniors  on  the 
whole  make  their  choices,  and  with  no  predominat- 
ing disposition  to  shirk  hard  work.  I  regret  that 
we  are  not  told  more  particularly  just  how  the 
lower  classes  exercise  their  option.  For  it  is  as 
to  the  lower  classes  that  our  main  contention 
exists.  In  order  to  make  his  case  good,  it  must 
be  shown  that  boys  of  eighteen  and  nineteen,  on 
entering  college  without  a  knowledge  of  what  their 
pursuits  in  life  will  be  or  of  what  in  reality  most 
of  the  studies  before  them  mean,  are  competent 
to  compose  the  entire  subject-matter  of  their  own 
instruction.  On  my  part,  I  am  prepared  to  affirm 
that  for  wise  choice  of  elective  courses  far  more 
maturity  of  judgment  and  knowledge  of  various 
subjects  than  belong  to  the  American  youth  at 
such  a  time  in  his  life  are  highly  desirable,  if  not 
imperatively  necessary.  So  far  as  I  can  judge,  the 
choices  of  the  Yale  juniors  and  seniors  show  more 
taste  for  hard  work  than  is  developed  under  the 
new  system.  It  is  noticeable  that  no  course  in 
the  classics  or  higher  mathematics  is  set  down 
as  being  a  favorite  with  the  two  upper  classes  at 
Harvard  in  1883-84.  But  54  juniors  and  181 
seniors  are  reported  as  having  taken  courses  in 
"  Fine  Arts  "  for  the  present  year.    At  Yale  this 


96  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

term,  however,  53  choices  of  courses  in  higher 
mathematics  (calculus,  vector  analysis,  etc.)  have 
been  made  by  juniors  and  seniors,  and  179  choices 
in  the  ancient  classics,  99  in  Latin,  and  80  in 
Greek,  by  the  same  classes.  (I  give  the  number 
of  choices  rather  than  of  men,  as  indicating  better 
the  amount  of  interest  taken  in  a  given  subject.) 
It  should  be  remembered,  also,  that  each  of  these 
choices  involves  responsibility  for  the  performance 
of  a  daily  task,  as  distinguished  from  cramming 
for  an  examination.  I  am  unable  to  say  that  the 
Harvard  system  has  no  statistics  to  match  these. 
But  I  have  a  pretty  firm  conviction  that  students 
who  have  been  kept  regularly  at  hard  work  in  pre- 
scribed courses  for  the  first  two  years  of  a  college 
course  will  be  far  more  likely  to  enjoy  hard  work 
in  the  later  years  of  that  course. 

The  last  remark  would,  of  course,  hold  true  only 
in  case  the  standard  of  scholarship  were  kept  well 
up,  and  the  instruction  made  bracing  and  attrac- 
tive. I  am  therefore  led  to  examine  briefly  two 
other  excellences  which  Professor  Palmer  ascribes 
to  the  New  Education.  It  is,  he  thinks,  steadily 
raising  the  rank  which  is  reckoned  "  decent  schol- 
arship." This  is  apparently  proved  by  a  compara- 
tive statement  of  the  "  marks  "  received  by  the 
average  Harvard  student  in  the  different  classes 
for  the  different  years  since  1874-75.  I  will  say 
frankly,  but  without  intending  to  cast  the  least 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  97 

shadow  of  question  over  the  sincerity  with  which 
the  proof  is  offered,  that  I  find  myself  unable  to 
confide  in  it.  I  should  not  think  of  trying  to 
compare  the  statistics  of  the  marks  given  under 
any  two  systems;  or  even  —  for  that  matter  — 
under  different  decades  of  the  same  system.  The 
marks  of  the  average  student  are,  of  course,  higher 
under  the  elective  system.  One  reason  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  so  many  students  choose 
their  electives  with  reference  to  the  marks  they 
expect  to  attain  under  the  chosen  instructor.  The 
teacher,  as  well  as  the  pupil,  is  known  by  his 
marks.  And  it  is  more  of  a  test  of  a  pupil's  real 
merits,  under  the  elective  87/8tem,  to  inquire  how 
many  courses  he  takes  under  teachers  that  give 
hard  work  and  low  marks  than  how  high  a  mark 
he  is  able  to  attain  by  judiciously  choosing  his 
courses.  Under  a  system  of  study  largely  pre- 
scribed, the  various  eccentricities  of  the  instructors 
in  marking  nearly  cancel  each  other.  But  under 
a  system  wholly  elective  the  comparative  statistics 
of  the  marks  are  quite  worthless  to  indicate  the 
grade  of  real  scholarship  secured. 

I  feel  some  hesitation  about  extending  my 
comparisons  so  as  to  cover  one  of  the  points 
which  Professor  Palmer  has  made.  He  testifies 
to  the  improvement  which  the  New  Education  has 
wrought  in  the  spirit  and  work  of  the  instructors 
themselves.    His  testimony  is,  of  course,  to  be 

7 


98  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

accepted  as  conclusive  upon  this  point.  I  should 
be  very  loath  to  admit,  however,  that  the  kind  of 
spirit  and  method  which  he  justly  considers  ad- 
mirable in  the  teacher  are  inseparably  connected 
with  the  system  in  vogue  at  Harvard.  It  seems 
to  me  that  a  teacher  who  suffers  himself  to  grow 
dull  and  slack  because  his  pupils  must  come  to 
him  whether  or  no  is  scarcely  fit  to  be  a  teacher 
under  any  so-called  system.  Certainly  there  have 
been  not  a  few  inspiring  instructors  in  our  Ameri- 
can colleges  before  the  New  Education  was  dis- 
covered. Is  it  at  all  likely  that  there  will  be  only 
a  few  poor  ones  in  case  the  triumph  of  the  New 
Education  is  everywhere  secured  ?  Is  it  not  even 
possible  that  certain  methods  of  instruction  may 
in  time  be  developed  by  a  system  that  makes  so 
much  depend  upon  the  favor  of  those  instructed 
which  will  not  conduce  to  the  highest  efficiency  in 
education  ? 

A  word  of  personal  experience  will  be  in  place 
at  this  point.  I  cannot  follow  Professor  Palmer, 
who  looks  back  upon  his  college  days  and  feels 
that  more  than  half  his  studies  should  have  been 
different.  The  studies  in  my  college  curriculum 
were  wholly  prescribed ;  they  included  the  ancient 
classics  in  junior  year,  and  calculus,  both  integral 
and  differential.  Like  him,  I  was  especially  fond 
of  Greek  and  philosophy;  but  I  studied  calculus 
with  more  carefulness   on  that  very  account.     I 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  99 

learned  to  do  patiently  the  things  set  me  to  do ; 
to  work  hard  and  wait  for  the  reward ;  to  conquer 
every  task  —  whatever  it  might  be  —  before  leav- 
ing it.  And  I  would  not  give  this  bit  of  learning 
for  all  to  be  got  from  the  most  attractive  elective 
courses  of  both  Harvard  and  Yale. 

But  it  is  full  time  to  recall  thought  to  the  real 
matter  of  disagreement  between  Professor  Palmer 
and  myself.  Toward  the  close  of  his  article  we 
find  the  remark  that,  for  lack  of  room,  he  cannot 
explain  at  length  "  why  the  elective  system  should 
be  begun  as  early  as  the  freshman  year ; "  it  is 
added,  "  surely  not  much  room  is  needed."  But, 
as  I  understand  the  matter,  this  is  precisely  what 
requires  most  room,  both  for  explanation  and  for 
argument.  In  common  with  most  colleges,  Yale 
now  permits  considerable  choice  in  the  last  two 
years  of  its  curriculum ;  the  elective  courses  now 
constitute  eight  fifteenths  of  the  junior  year,  and 
four  fifths  of  the  senior.  No  choice,  with  the 
exception  of  one,  between  French  and  German,  is 
permitted  in  the  first  two  years.  Now,  of  course, 
the  question  is  entirely  reasonable  to  ask  of  one 
who,  like  myself,  approves  heartily  of  so  much  of 
the  elective  system,  Why  not  accept  it  throughout 
in  the  form  adopted  by  Harvard  ?  Why  draw  the 
line  between  sophomore  and  junior  years  rather 
than  between  freshman  year  in  college  and  the 
last  year  in  the  fitting-school?    Why  prescribe 


100  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

any  courses  for  the  last  two  years  in  preference  to 
giving  the  student  full  range  for  the  exercise  of 
his  preferences?  The  reply  to  these  questions 
might  be  given  with  an  indefinite  amount  of  detail. 
This  whole  question,  like  nearly  all  those  questions 
which  most  perplex  our  human  life,  is  one  of 
drawing  lines  and  making  distinctions.  Probably 
all  will  admit  that  lines  must  be  drawn  some- 
where. There  comes  a  time,  that  is  to  say,  when 
the  boy  may  be  left  more  and  more  to  direct 
himself,  —  as  in  other  matters,  so  in  the  subject- 
matter  of  his  education.  But  for  years  the  boy, 
in  order  to  learn  how  to  study  and  how  to  make 
right  choice  of  what  he  will  study,  must  be  kept  in 
prescribed  lines.  Infants  cannot  decide  whether 
they  will  learn  to  read  or  not.  Small  boys  cannot 
be  left  wholly  to  decide  whether  they  will  study 
grammar  and  arithmetic.  Older  boys  and  youths 
and  young  men,  whatever  they  undertake  in  the 
education  of  themselves,  find  a  great  fund  of 
previous  experience  and  established  custom  hem- 
ming them  in  and  restricting  their  perfectly  free 
choice.  The  average  college  freshman  ought  not 
to  desire,  and  he  is  not  capable  of  exercising,  such 
choice  in  so  grave  a  problem  as  that  of  determin- 
ing all  the  further  subject-matter  of  his  education. 
In  the  matter  of  assuming  full  political  rights 
and  privileges  the  State  requires  the  youth  to  have 
reached  the  age  of  twenty-one.    I  do  not  suppose 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  101 

that  there  is  anything  magical  about  this  particu- 
lar number.  Some  young  men  would  be  ready  for 
suffrage  earlier  ;  some  men  are  never  really  ready 
for  it.  But  a  line  must  be  drawn  somewhere. 
And  certainly,  after  the  youth  has  spent  two  years 
in  the  drill  of  college  life,  he  is  much  better  fitted 
than  when  he  enters  for  exercising  his  choices  in 
respect  to  the  rest  of  his  education ;  but  then  only 
in  a  limited  way.  Professor  Palmer,  however, 
thinks  it  almost  self-evident  that  when  the  boy 
leaves  home,  at  about  eighteen  years  of  age,  is  the 
best  time  for  him  to  begin  to  say  what  he  will 
study ;  and  that,  all  at  once,  and  from  that  time 
onward,  he  should  have  the  entire  say.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  very  fact  of  the  new  surroundings 
with  which  college  life  begins  is  an  argument  the 
other  way.  After  the  youth  has  developed  awhile 
in  his  new  surroundings,  has  adjusted  himself  to 
them,  has  learned  from  experience  in  them  how 
matters  pertaining  to  study  go,  and  what  the  dif- 
ferent courses  opening  before  him  are,  then,  and 
not  till  then,  should  he  be  summoned  to  the  grave 
task  of  deciding.  It  is  better,  too,  that  he  should 
be  introduced  gradually  to  the  responsibilities  of 
deciding.  A  headlong  plunge  into  freedom  is  not 
a  real  good.  Moreover,  I  am  one  of  those  who  still 
believe  that  an  educated  man  should  be  trained  to 
some  good  degree  in  each  of  the  four  great  branches 
of  human  knowledge,  —  in  language,  including  lit- 


102  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

erature ;  in  mathematics  and  physical  science ;  in 
the  history  of  his  race ;  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
human  mind  in  its  relations  to  all  else.  It  is, 
then,  precisely  because  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
New  Education  draws  its  lines  in  the  right  place 
that  I  am  opposed  to  what  I  regard  as  its  extreme 
measures  and  not  well-guarded  ideas.  In  an  en- 
larged use  of  option  for  the  later  years  of  college 
life  I  do  believe ;  but  my  belief  in  the  elective 
system  at  all  in  the  American  college  is  not  so 
strong  as  my  distrust  of  the  lengths  to  which  it 
is  being  carried  by  the  so-called  New  Education. 

There  is  one  argument  of  Professor  Palmer 
which  is  so  much  a  matter  of  taste  and  impression, 
and  so  little  a  matter  of  statistics  and  logic,  that 
it  is  not  open  to  discussion.  I  refer  to  his  convic- 
tion that  a  better  type  of  manliness  is  developed 
at  Harvard  in  the  students  than  is  to  be  found  in 
other  colleges  that  have  less  completely  adopted 
the  principles  of  the  New  Education.  In  behalf 
of  my  own  pupils,  and  on  the  ground  of  careful 
observations,  I  will  simply  say,  —  I  do  not  believe 
that  any  manlier  men  than  those  at  Yale  are  to  be 
found  in  any  college  in  the  country. 

Upon  the  subject  of  cultured  manliness  in  the 
undergraduate  student,  I  find  myself  holding  the 
same  ideal  as  that  presented  by  Professor  Palmer, 
but  differing  from  him  considerably  in  my  judg- 
ment as  to  the  best  way  of  realizing  it.    It  seems 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  103 

to  me  that  he  has  left  the  great  ethical  law  of 
habit,  and  the  immense  value  of  the  pressure  of 
immediate  necessity,  too  much  out  of  the  account. 
"We  want,  indeed,  to  train  the  young  to  make  right 
choices,  spontaneously,  and  with  a  generous  love  of 
duty.  But  none  of  us  live  under  the  sole  influence 
of  high  ideals  set  at  some  remote  distance  from  us. 
Day  by  day  we  choose  to  do  our  tasks  because  the 
hour  for  them  has  come,  and  the  immediate  pres- 
sure of  the  environment  is  upon  us.  Shall  the 
physician  go  to  his  oflfice  when  the  hour  comes  ? 
His  patients  are  there  in  waiting.  He  is  expected 
daily  at  the  appointed  hours,  —  and  not  merely 
eighty-four  per  cent,  of  these  hours.  Shall  the  clerk 
be  at  the  store,  or  the  book-keeper  at  his  desk,  when 
the  hour  for  beginning  business  has  arrived  ?  He 
must  be  there  :  not  because  he  will  suffer  physical 
torture  if  absent ;  nor  yet  because  he  will  finally 
discover  that  much  absence  for  many  years  has 
not,  on  the  whole,  been  for  his  best  interests.  He 
must  be  there  because  he  is  living  under  a  system 
which  makes  it  for  his  immediate  interest  to  be 
there ;  and,  indeed,  has  been  so  trained  under  such 
a  system  that  he  scarcely  contemplates  the  possi- 
bility of  not  being  there.  Under  a  system  of  edu- 
cation which  kindly  but  firmly  invites  men  to 
choose  right,  in  view  of  consequences  that  fit 
close  to  their  daily  and  hourly  lives,  the  best  char- 
acter will  be  trained.    It  is  most  like  the  divine 


104  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

system  under  which  we  live  as  bound  together  by 
associated  action. 

The  ground  of  Professor  Palmer's  argument 
from  experience  has  now  been  pretty  well  trav- 
ersed. I  am  quite  content  to  leave  the  facts  and 
impressions  on  both  sides  to  be  weighed  by  all  who 
may  be  interested  in  such  discussion.  In  closing  I 
shall  express  —  in  the  name  of  the  great  majority 
of  those  engaged  in  the  practical  work  of  education 
in  this  country  —  some  of  the  fears  felt  as  to  the 
ultimate  results  of  the  New  Education.  These 
fears  are  not  bugbears,  incontinently  and  obsti- 
nately opposed  to  the  fair  spirit  of  progress ;  they 
are  honest  and  strong  fears. 

We  are  afraid  that  the  New  Education  (mean- 
ing by  this  the  method  in  use  at  Harvard)  will 
increase  the  tendency  to  self-indulgence  and 
shallowness,  which  is  already  great  enough  in 
American  student  life.  A  smattering  of  many 
knowledges,  hastily  and  superficially  got,  is  the 
temptation  of  our  modern  education.  The  chief 
remedy  must  be  in  a  selection  of  certain  topics  to 
be  pursued  with  large  persistence  and  thorough- 
ness by  all  those  who  choose  to  associate  them- 
selves for  purposes  of  common  study.  If  the 
average  American  boy,  on  entering  college,  had 
had  a  discipline,  and  had  made  acquisitions  in  a 
few  lines  of  study,  at  all  equalling  the  results 
reached  by   the    German   gymnasium,  he  might 


EDUCATION,   NEW  AND  OLD  105 

more  safely  be  left  to  choose  for  himself.  One's 
eyes  must  be  already  well  opened  to  hop  about, 
fetter  free,  from  twig  to  twig,  upon  the  tree  of 
knowledge.  But  our  freshman  has  had  no  such 
mental  discipline ;  he  has  made  no  such  acqui- 
sitions. The  graduate  of  a  German  gymnasium 
knows,  indeed,  more  of  some  subjects  than  the 
majority  of  the  professors  of  the  same  subjects  in 
not  a  few  of  our  so-called  colleges.  Two  years 
more  of  continued  study  in  prescribed  lines  is 
certainly  little  enough.  [It  will  be  noticed  that 
this  statement  is  quite  independent  of  any  opinion 
as  to  what  should  be  taught  in  fitting-school  and 
early  college  years  ;  it  implies  only  that  something 
should  be  secured  as  thoroughly  taught.] 

We  are  afraid  of  the  effect  of  the  New  Education 
upon  the  academies  and  fitting-schools  of  the  coun- 
try. Slowly  but  steadily  the  quality  of  the  work 
done  in  the  preparation  of  boys  for  college  has  been 
improving.  The  colleges  have  continually  made 
increased  demands  upon  the  preparatory  schools ; 
these  schools  have  been  continually  responding 
better  and  better  to  the  demands  made  upon  them. 
But  now  they  are  to  be  called  upon  for  a  bewilder- 
ing variety  of  "  courses."  How  shall  they  meet 
the  demands  made  upon  them  by  the  many  ways 
amongst  which  a  boy  may  make  his  choice  to  enter 
the  college  doors  as  thrown  open  by  the  New  Edu- 
cation ?    What  interest  will  boys  continue  to  take 


106  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

in  the  mathematics  and  ancient  classics  of  the  fit- 
ting-school when  these  pursuits  are  required  simply 
to  get  into  college  through  one  of  these  many  doors, 
and  are  then  liable  to  be  abandoned  as  soon  as  the 
goal  of  free  election  has  been  attained  ? 

We  are  afraid  of  the  effect  of  the  unrestricted 
elective  system  upon  the  higher  education  of  the 
country.  The  standard  of  such  education  has  con- 
stantly been  rising  for  many  years.  The  old 
methods  were,  indeed,  faulty  in  many  particulars, 
—  in  some  inherently  so,  in  more  as  a  matter  of 
accidental  and  temporary  application.  Yet,  after 
all,  they  gave  something  that  had  a  definite  and 
tangible  value.  The  new  methods,  in  themselves 
considered,  are  better.  The  new  learning  and 
science  are,  of  course,  infinitely  richer  and  broader 
than  the  old.  In  order  to  introduce  them  to  the 
college  undergraduate,  however,  is  it  ijecessary  to 
take  everything  as  respects  the  subject-matter  of 
his  education  out  of  the  direct  control  of  the  older 
and  wiser  party  in  the  transaction,  and  commit  it  to 
the  choice  of  the  younger  and  more  inexperienced  ? 
If  this  is  to  be,  how  will  it  not  affect,  almost  dis- 
astrously for  a  time,  the  interests  of  the  higher 
education  ?  There  are,  to  be  sure,  many  ways  of 
being  educated :  there  are  already  many  schools 
giving  different  quantities  and  kinds  of  knowledges 
and  powers  of  action.  Hitherto  all  ways  and 
schools  have  invited  the  choices  of  the  men  who 


EDUCATION,  NEW  AND  OLD  107 

have  attended  them  only  in  a  general  way.  They 
have  said,  virtually,  If  you  choose  me,  you  choose 
a  certain  kind  and  amount  of  discipline  in  know- 
ing and  doing,  and  you  must  abide  by  your  choice. 
We  know  how,  as  respects  both  matter  and  manner, 
to  reach  the  end  better  than  do  you ;  we  will,  in 
the  main,  choose  the  path  for  you.  But  what  of 
connected,  steady  discipline  in  certain  lines  will  a 
higher  education  come  to  represent  in  this  country 
if  the  so-called  "  new "  method  of  giving  into  the 
hands  of  the  pupil  all  choice  of  subject,  from  one 
short  period  of  education  to  the  next,  is  to  prevail  ? 
Finally,  we  are  afraid  of  the  effect  of  the  New 
Education  upon  the  character  of  youth.  We  are 
still  afraid  of  the  very  issues  in  which  Professor 
Palmer  finds  his  arguments  for  the  benefits  of  the 
system  he  approves.  It  is  not  enough  to  show  that 
some  improvement  in  various  particulars  has  taken 
place  in  student  character  and  student  life  at  Har- 
vard since  this  system  was  most  completely  put  in 
place  there.  I  think  I  have  shown  that  in  every 
respect,  except  the  one  of  securing  $175,000  instead 
of  $250,000  a  year,  and  of  making  a  smaller  per- 
centage of  annual  gain  in  numbers,  the  results  of 
the  system  still  in  vogue  at  Yale  are  equal,  or 
superior,  to  those  at  Harvard.  The  argument, 
from  an  experience  of  one  or  two  years  in  a  single 
institution,  does  not  quiet  the  fears  which  are 
grounded  in  old-time  convictions  and  common  in- 


108  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

stitutional  customs  that  have  their  roots  in  many 
centuries.  We  need  much  more  light,  both  from 
reason  and  from  observation,  before  we  can  see  our 
way  clearly  to  prefer  the  so-called  "  New  Educa- 
tion "  to  one  which  is,  in  our  judgment,  wiser,  al- 
though both  new  and  old. 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  A  MODERN 
LIBERAL  EDUCATION 


THE  ESSENTIALS  OF  A  MODERN  LIBERAL 
EDUCATION 

I  BEG  permission  to  preface  the  main  body  of 
this  address  with  two  remarks,  partly  apologetic 
and  partly  explanatory.  The  subject  brought  be- 
fore you  this  evening  may  seem  to  some  quite  lack- 
ing in  that  freshness  of  interest  which  promotes 
a  flow  of  novel  and  entertaining  thoughts.  Only 
last  February  20,  in  this  city,  an  elaborate  report 
from  a  number  of  experts  was  presented  which 
dealt  primarily  with  studies  in  elementary  educa- 
tion. This  report,  however,  suggested  important 
modifications  in  that  subsequent  training  of  the 
smaller  number  which  is  traditionally  esteemed 
worthy  of  being  called  a  liberal  education.  And 
for  some  years  past,  not  only  in  this  country,  but 
in  France,  in  Germany,  and  even  in  conservative 
England,  discussion  has  been  rife  over  the  order 
and  the  character  of  studies  proper  for  collegiate 
and  university  students.  In  spite  of  writings  and 
speeches  innumerable,  on  the  part  of  men  and 
women  most  competent  or  very  incompetent,  it 
can  scarcely  be  claimed  by  the  non-partisan  ob- 
server of  this  contention  that  agreement  has  been 


112  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

reached  even  upon  the  more  important  and  funda- 
mental of  the  numerous  considerations  involved. 
Yet  how  important  it  seems  to  us  all  to  have  some 
settlement  of  the  contention!  For  the  children 
of  to-day  will  not  meantime  stop  growing  into 
young  manhood  and  young  womanhood ;  and  the 
youth  of  to-day  are  constantly  being  converted 
into  teachers  of  the  generation  following  them. 

The  other  remark  which  you  will  please  consider 
as  a  part  of  my  preface  is  the  following :  Educa- 
tion is  one  of  those  subjects  which,  from  their 
very  nature,  do  not  admit  of  a  very  close  approach 
to  demonstrative  argument.  Neither  from  history, 
nor  from  our  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  the 
human  soul,  nor  from  study  of  the  details  of  ex- 
perience in  the  past,  can  we  construct  a  science  — 
strictly  speaking  —  of  education.  Pedagogics  will 
probably  never  hold  a  place  among  the  exact 
sciences.  We  may,  however,  form  comprehensive 
and  defensible  opinions  on  this  subject ;  and  these 
opinions  will  be  the  more  entitled  to  respect  and 
acceptance,  as  the  mind  holding  them  is  itself 
genial  and  truly  liberal,  and  is  also  acquainted 
with  the  truths  of  history,  of  nature,  and  especially 
of  the  human  soul.  I  close  this  remark,  then,  by 
saying  that,  without  pretence  of  drawing  irresisti- 
ble conclusions,  much  less  of  infallibility  in  argu- 
ment, I  merely  offer  for  your  friendly  consideration 
some  of  my  opinions. 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        113 

But  first  of  all  let  us  see  clearly  just  what  the 
question  before  us  really  is.  For  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that,  while  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  de- 
bated and  the  inducements  brought  forward  are 
often  much  too  narrow,  the  question  itself  is  rarely 
defined  with  sufficient  limitation.  As  to  the  very 
meaning  of  the  question,  then,  I  offer  these  three 
statements :  — 

It  is  a  liberal  education  the  nature  of  which  we 
are  briefly  to  discuss.  Now  this  term  necessarily 
implies  some  sort  of  differentiation.  Freeing  it,  as 
far  as  possible,  from  all  false  pride  and  also  from 
jealousy  and  unreasoning  opprobrium,  the  term 
must  be  held  to  signify  something  more  than  mere 
education.  It  must  signify — let  us  frankly  con- 
fess —  education  for  the  few  as  distinguished  from 
education  for  the  great  multitude,  or  for  the  very 
many.  The  public  schools,  then,  however  supple- 
mented by  private  generosity,  cannot  reasonably 
be  expected  to  provide  the  body  of  the  people  with 
a  liberal  education.  I  wish  this  declaration,  how- 
ever, to  be  considered  as  different  from  the  im- 
portant and  closely  connected  practical  question : 
"What  part  should  the  public  schools  take  in 
starting  a  few  selected  pupils  on  their  way  to  a 
truly  liberal  education?" 

Neither  is  a  liberal  education  properly  a  technical 
education,  such  as  our  manual-training  and  trades 
schools,  our  business  colleges,  and  even  most  of 

8 


114  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

our  so-called  scientific  schools,  aim  to  give.  This 
may  be  admitted  without  in  the  least  depreciating 
the  character  of  the  training  given  by  these  schools, 
or  the  value  of  the  results  which  many  of  them  pro- 
duce. But  if  we  mean  anything  distinctive  by  the 
words,  "  a  liberal  education,"  it  is  something  more 
than  such  an  education  as  these  schools  furnish. 

We  may  now  come  closer  to  the  meaning  of  the 
phrase  by  laying  emphasis  upon  the  word  "  liberal." 
Of  course  this  word  once  meant,  in  this  connec- 
tion, such  an  education  as  befits  a  free  man  or  a 
gentleman.  On  this  account  there  is  still  clinging 
to  our  usage  something  of  pride  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  jealousy  and  odium  on  the  other  hand. 
For  are  not  all  men  now  equally  free ;  and  where 
is  now  the  class  of  gentlemen,  unique  and  distinc- 
tively so-called  ?  By  a  justifiable  turn  of  mean- 
ing, however,  a  "  liberal  education  "  may  be  defined 
as  that  which  makes  the  free  mind,  which  furnishes 
the  liberalizing  culture  of  the  trained  gentleman. 
And  here  it  must  be  remembered  that  all  special- 
ists' studies  have  their  peculiar  prejudices  and 
peculiar  temptations  —  almost  irresistible  —  to  par- 
ticular forms  of  narrowness.  A  truly  liberal  edu- 
cation ought  therefore  to  tend  toward  the  setting 
of  the  mind  free  from  all  classes  of  scholastic 
prejudices.  It  ought  to  work  in  the  direction  of 
freedom  from  the  philologue's  narrowness,  from 
the  "  scientist's  "  narrowness,  from  the  circle  of 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION"       115 

such  illiberality  as  distinguishes  the  mere  student 
of  economics,  or  of  social  problems,  of  psychology, 
or  of  theology. 

But,  again,  I  am  to  speak  of  the  "  essentials  " 
of  that  education  which  is  worthy  to  be  called 
liberal.  Now,  amid  wide  disagreements  as  to  what 
and  how  much  the  constitution  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion involves,  and  as  to  the  order  and  proportion 
in  which  its  studies  should  be  taken,  there  prevails 
the  universal  assumption  that  some  things  are 
entitled  to  be  considered  indispensable  factors  in 
this  constitution.  Important  changes  have  un- 
doubtedly taken  place  in  opinion  on  almost  all  the 
subordinate  points  under  discussion.  The  old- 
fashioned,  substantial  agreement  as  to  what  are 
essential  subjects  of  instruction  in  this  particular 
form  or  degree  of  education  has  been  of  late  largely 
broken  up.  There  is  even  more  diversity  of  view 
as  to  how  far  subjects  admitted  to  be  essential 
should  be  carried  before  specialization  in  non- 
essentials is  permitted  or  encouraged.  Scarcely 
any  two  curricula  in  any  of  the  institutions  in  this 
country  which  design  and  claim  to  afford  a  truly 
liberal  education,  precisely  agree.  Yet,  theoret- 
ically, all  are  agreed  as  to  the  validity  of  a  distinc- 
tion between  essentials  and  non-essentials.  And, 
practically, certain  subjects  are  everywhere  required, 
at  least  to  some  extent,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  this 
form  of  education. 


116  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

Once  more,  let  it  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  very 
inquiry  as  to  what  a  "  modern  "  liberal  education 
should  be  admits  the  propriety,  and  even  the 
necessity,  of  making  changes  in  many  of  the 
factors  of  such  an  education.  And  here  I  must 
insist  upon  a  distinction  which  has  been  of  late 
almost  wholly  overlooked  in  all  discussions  of  this 
subject.  This  is  the  distinction  between  a  truly 
modern  education  and  the  recent  great  extension 
of  the  elective  system  in  the  education  offered 
by  the  higher  institutions  of  this  country.  That 
kind  of  freedom,  or  "  liberality "  if  you  please, 
which  gives  to  the  youth  under  education  the 
choice  of  his  subjects  of  pursuit,  and  largely  of 
the  order  and  manner  of  their  pursuit,  has  been 
carried  among  us  to  an  extent  which  astonishes 
the  European  students  of  educational  problems. 
But  neither  the  exercise  nor  the  withdrawal  of 
this  freedom  in  itself  determines  the  question 
whether  the  student  is  receiving  a  genuinely 
modern  education.  What  is  necessarily  implied 
in  this  word  "  modern  "  I  shall  try  to  make  clear  in 
another  connection.  I  now  wish  only  to  say  that 
the  term  signifies  some  kind  of  change  which 
shall  adapt  the  so-called  liberal  education  to  the 
age,  but  that  the  particular  kind  of  change  re- 
quired is  by  no  means  necessarily  to  be  reached 
through  an  elective  system. 

And  now  as  I   inquire,  "What,  then,  are   the 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL   EDUCATION      117 

essentials  of  a  modern  liberal  education?  What 
studies  must  be  pursued  in  order  to  secure,  as  far 
as  possible,  the  truly  free  and  cultured  mind  in 
accordance  with  the  actual  conditions  of  modern 
life  ? "  I  find  no  insuperable  difficulty  in  making 
up  a  fairly  defensible  opinion.  For  amid  many 
and  conflicting  changes,  all  is  by  no  means 
changed.  History  still  lies  back  of  us  with  its 
great  lessons  there,  although  we  must  undoubtedly 
take  pains  in  reading  them  into  clear  and  con- 
vincing formulas.  The  primary  and  essential 
facts  and  laws  of  man's  environment  —  what  we 
call  nature,  in  which  human  nature  has  its  setting, 
and  in  which  human  life  develops  with  a  certain 
reciprocity  of  influences  —  also  remain  the  same 
as  ever.  And  the  soul  of  man,  that  which  is  to 
be  educated,  —  the  real  being  whose  culture  to  the 
point  of  highest  freedom  and  perfection  it  is  hoped 
by  all  changes  in  processes  the  better  to  attain,  — 
the  soul  of  man  is  not  essentially  different  in  this 
boastful  nineteenth  century  from  the  soul  of  man 
in  the  so-called  "  Dark  Ages,"  or  when  Plato  and 
Aristotle  undertook  its  informing,  purifying,  and 
elevating. 

From  history,  from  nature  without,  and  from 
the  nature  of  the  mind,  I  think  we  may  confidently 
derive  a  body  of  rational  conclusions  as  to  what 
are  the  essentials  of  the  most  modern  liberal  edu- 
cation, or  of  all  truly  liberal  education.     And  now, 


118  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

without  making  any  show  of  argument,  deductive 
or  inductive,  as  though  you  could  not  avoid  being 
convinced  and  agreeing  with  me,  I  will  frankly 
state  my  own  opinions  and  some  of  the  reasons 
which,  in  my  own  reflections,  support  them. 

A  truly  liberal  education  includes,  I  think, 
as  essential  to  it,  the  prolonged  and  scholastic 
pursuit  of  three  subjects,  or  groups  of  subjects. 
These  three  are,  language  and  literature,  mathe- 
matics and  natural  science,  and  the  soul  of  man, 
including  the  products  of  his  reflective  thinking. 
Any  education  which  is  markedly  defective  on 
any  one  of  these  three  sides  comes,  so  far,  short 
of  being  liberal,  —  of  being,  that  is  to  say,  the  kind 
of  culture  which  sets  the  mind  most  truly  free, 
and  which  is  worthy  of  the  cultivated  gentleman 
in  the  nobler  meaning  of  that  latter  word. 

It  is  difficult  indeed  to  separate  the  scientific 
study  of  literature  from  the  study  of  history,  or 
to  separate  the  proper  pursuit  of  philosophy  from 
the  study  of  both  literature  and  history.  But  in 
a  qualified,  though  meaningful,  way  we  may  de- 
clare that  the  supreme  expression  of  human 
mental  life  is  in  literature,  —  of  man's  life,  that  is, 
of  thought  and  feeling.  To  get  the  supreme  ex- 
pression of  man  in  action,  in  the  exercise  of  those 
activities  which  we  somewhat  loosely  call  practi- 
cal, we  must  turn  to  the  study  of  history.  But 
literature  is,  of  course,  a  certain  form  of  human 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        119 

language,  put  on  record  so  that  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  thus  expressed  can  remain  for  other 
generations  of  thinking,  feeling  men  to  contem- 
plate sympathetically  and  yet  critically. 

Language,  then,  is  the  only  pass-key  to  litera- 
ture ;  and  to  be  a  cultured  student  of  language  is 
the  only  possible  way  to  possess  the  key  which 
unlocks  the  treasure-house  of  literature.  You  will 
notice  that  I  have  used  this  important  word  in  the 
singular  number.  I  have  not  said  that  a  liberal 
education  includes  of  necessity  the  prolonged 
scholastic  study  of  many  languages,  much  less  the 
glib-tongued  use  of  many  languages.  It  is  un- 
doubtedly a  very  convenient  thing  in  these  days 
to  speak  in  several  of  the  principal  forms  of  human 
speech  ;  it  is  even,  if  you  please,  a  pretty  accom- 
plishment quite  worth  spending  some  years  of 
time  and  some  thousands  of  dollars  upon.  But 
it  is  not  an  essential,  it  is  not  even  a  very  vital 
and  impressive,  part  of  a  truly  liberal  education. 
The  empty-headed  hotel  clerk,  the  boorish  globe- 
trotter, the  frivolous  boarding-school  miss,  may  have 
this  accomplishment  of  languages,  and  not  have  the 
first  rudiments  of  a  liberal  culture  in  language. 

When,  then,  I  speak  of  the  prolonged  and 
scholastic  study  of  language  as  an  essential  of  a 
liberal  education,  I  have  reference  to  acquiring  the 
science  and  art  of  interpretation  and  the  cognate 
science  and  art  of  expression.    For  the  apprecia- 


120  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

tion  of  literature  can  never  come  by  mere  un- 
trained reading:  I  do  not  care  to  what  kind  of 
literature,  or  in  what  language  expressed,  you 
apply  my  denial.  He  who  has  made  no  such 
study  of  language  as  a  liberal  education  implies 
cannot  enter  the  inner  temple  of  literature,  he 
can  scarcely  cross  the  threshold  of  its  outer  courts ; 
for  the  key  to  the  temple  is  the  knowing  how  to 
get  at  the  meaning  of  any  literature ;  and  the 
knowing  how  to  get  at  the  meaning  can  only  be 
acquired  by  the  study  —  not  of  many  languages 
as  many,  necessarily,  but  of  at  least  some  one 
language  as  the  supreme  expression  of  human 
thought  and  feeling. 

In  order  to  illustrate  and  enforce  my  opinion  I 
turn  somewhat  aside  for  a  moment  to  the  current 
discussions  over  the  place  of  the  ancient  classical 
languages  —  especially  of  the  Greek  —  in  a  modern 
liberal  education.  The  larger  part  of  the  argu- 
ments used  against  continuing  these  languages  in 
the  place  they  have  formerly  held  seem  to  me 
beyond  all  doubt  justifiable.  The  answers  which 
the  defenders  of  these  languages  have  most  em- 
ployed are  scarcely  sufficient  to .  ward  off  or  to 
foil  the  attacks  of  their  opponents.  At  the  same 
time  I  most  firmly  believe  in  keeping  the  ancient 
classics  substantially  where  they  have  been  in  the 
scheme  of  a  truly  liberal  education ;  and  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  proposed  substitution  of  any  of  the 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        121 

modern  languages  for  the  ancient  classics.  These 
seemingly  conflicting  sympathies  I  harmonize  by 
answering  the  inquiry,  why  Latin  and  Greek  should 
be  required,  in  a  way  far  more  satisfactory  to  me 
than  that  followed  by  the  classicists  themselves. 
The  ancient  classical  languages,  and  especially 
Greek,  are,  on  account  of  their  very  construction 
and  on  account  of  the  superiority  of  their  equip- 
ment, by  far  the  best  media  for  the  study  of 
language,  for  the  acquiring  of  the  science  and  art 
of  interpretation,  for  the  possession  and  use  of  the 
key  to  literature. 

It  seems  to  me  that  very  insufficient  account  is 
customarily  made  of  the  difference  between  the 
man  who  has  enjoyed  and  improved  this  part  of 
a  liberal  education  and  the  equally  intelligent  and 
serious  man  who  is  lacking  here.  The  latter  can 
never,  try  as  hard  as  he  may,  read  a  choice  piece 
of  literature,  of  any  sort  or  in  any  language,  as 
the  other  readily  can.  The  value  of  studying 
Greek,  under  skilful  and  judicious  teaching,  is 
not  set  at  its  highest  even  when  we  consider  how 
choice  are  the  stores  of  Greek  literature  which  are 
thus  opened  to  the  student,  if  only  he  can  master 
—  a  thing  possible  to  only  a  few  professors  of 
Greek  in  this  country — the  latiguage  so  as  to 
move  about  at  all  freely  in  its  literature.  That 
value  is  rather  seen  at  its  highest  when  we  con- 
sider how  in  this  way  a  man  may  be  best  trained 


122  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

in  skill  and  interest  really  to  get  at  a  good  piece 
of  literature  in  any  language  —  even  in  his  own 
language. 

An  acquaintance  of  mine  had  some  years  ago  a 
confidential  conversation  with  the  public  servant  to 
whom  had  been  committed,  for  a  long  period  of 
years,  the  engrossing  of  the  bills  proposed  by  the 
successive  ministries  of  one  of  the  most  powerful 
and  intelligent  nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
This  work  this  official  had  done  for  two  prime 
ministers,  one  of  whom  was  a  classical  scholar,  the 
other  a  man  of  literary  training  and  tastes,  but 
without  a  liberal  education  in  language  study. 
The  clear-cut,  intelligible,  interpretable  character 
of  the  bills  drafted  by  the  former  were,  as  a  rule, 
in  marked  contrast  with  the  confused,  uninterpret- 
able,  but  "  flourishing  "  style  of  the  latter. 

As  a  rule,  the  Japanese  cultivated  classes  acquire 
the  speaking  and  writing  of  foreign  languages  with 
an  uncommon  speed  and  deftness.  But  I  never 
knew  a  scholar  of  that  nation  —  no  matter,  we 
will  suppose,  how  well  acquainted  both  with  Japa- 
nese and  with  English  —  who  could  furnish  you 
an  exact  interpretation  of  either  one  of  these  lan- 
guages in  terms  of  the  other.  This  inability  is 
doubtless  partly  due  to  the  immense  difference  in 
the  so-called  genius  of  the  two  languages.  But  it 
is  also,  I  venture  to  believe,  largely  due  to  the  fact 
that  exact  interpretation  —  the  telling  precisely 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        123 

what  do  you  understand  this  to  mean  as  a  matter 
of  careful  construing  —  is  not  made  a  study  among 
the  Japanese  in  acquiring  a  liberal  education. 

For  myself,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  if  I  had 
forgotten  all  I  ever  knew  of  the  Greek  language 
and  of  the  Greek  literature,  its  study  would  still 
be  worth  double  the  time  it  cost  in  making  me  able 
to  sit  down  with  a  good  book,  in  whatever  language 
written,  and  let  its  author  tell  me  just  what  was  in 
his  mind  and  on  his  heart.  I  insist  upon  it  that  the 
practical  consequences  of  retiring  the  study  of  the 
classical  languages  from  the  curriculum  of  a  liberal 
education  will  be  something  quite  incalculable  in 
the  way  of  wresting  from  those  who  call  themselves 
cultured  the  key  to  every  form  of  good  literature. 

It  would  scarcely  seem  necessary  to  argue  that 
a  somewhat  wide  acquaintance  with,  and  fondness 
for,  good  literature  is  a  necessary  part  of  a  truly 
liberal  education.  For  theoretically  few  indeed 
are  found  ready  to  dispute  this  truth.  But,  in  my 
opinion,  this  is  one  of  the  truths  most  likely  at  the 
present  time  to  be  left  practically  out  of  the  ac- 
count in  making  up  our  estimate  of  the  studies 
indispensable  to  such  an  education.  There  is  read- 
ing enough  done  —  there  is  far  too  much  reading 
done  —  by  the  multitude  of  the  people  and  by  the 
so-called  educated  classes.  And  of  the  making  of 
many  books,  the  gross,  materialistic,  sordid  manu- 
facture of  something  to  be  read,  —  something,  no 


124  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

matter  what,  if  you  can  only  so  construct  and  ad- 
vertise it  that  it  will  be  read,  —  there  is  no  promise 
of  an  end.  But  the  simple  undisputed  matter  of 
fact  is  that  what  is  read  is  not  literature,  and 
would,  almost  all  of  it,  better  be  left  unread. 

It  is  somewhat  shocking  to  discover  how  few 
men  and  women,  even  among  those  who  claim  the 
title  of  "  educated,"  know  or  care  much  about  really 
good  literature.  They  read  —  the  newspapers 
(Heaven  pity  them),  the  magazines,  and  the  lat- 
est, most  sensational  novels.  But  with  these  per- 
sons there  is  little  acquaintance  or  affection  having 
for  its  object  what  is  really  pure,  noble,  and  elevat- 
ing in  the  world's  best  books.  I  regard  it,  then, 
as  of  the  utmost  importance  to  hold  up  a  high 
standard  of  literary  culture  as  an  aspiration  and 
aim  of  all  those  who  would  lay  claim  to  a  truly 
liberal  education. 

And  here  I  will  venture  to  speak  quite  frankly 
though  with  perfect  friendliness,  concerning  cer- 
tain efforts  of  some  of  the  modern  devotees  of  a 
more  purely  scientific  education.  They  are  often 
obviously  irritated  at  the  distinction  which  has  not 
as  yet  been  wholly  abolished  between  the  degree 
of  B.  A.  and  the  other  degrees  given  at  the  end  of 
courses  which  do  not  emphasize  in  the  same  way 
the  linguistic  and  literary  side  of  culture.  They 
think  it  unjust  and  intolerable  that  graduates  of 
scientific  schools,  who  have  been  serious  and  sue- 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION         125 

cessful  in  their  studies,  should  not  be  eligible  — 
for  example  —  to  the  distinction  of  Phi  Beta 
Kappa,  or  to  other  similar  distinctions.  Now, 
speaking  for  myself,  I  certainly  have  no  exagger- 
ated estimate  of  the  worth  of  titles  or  of  member- 
ship in  any  form  of  learned  societies.  But  I  do 
care  a  great  deal  about  the  truth,  and  about  main- 
taining in  this  country  a  high  standard,  a  sound 
basis,  and  a  comprehensive  range,  for  the  recipients 
of  a  liberal  education.  And  in  my  opinion,  any- 
one who  claims  that  a  larger  amount  of  scholastic 
study  of  the  physical  and  natural  sciences  can  be 
substituted  for  studies  in  language  and  literature, 
so  as  to  obtain  in  this  way  that  kind  of  cultured 
mind  which  belongs  to  the  intellectual  freeman,  is 
simply  maintaining  what,  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  case,  cannot  be  made  true.  Neither  bestowing 
nor  withholding  titles  and  membership  in  learned 
societies  will  alter  the  fundamental  facts  of  the 
soul's  life  and  development.  Connected  with  these 
trifles,  however,  impressions  and  tendencies  may  be 
strengthened  which  will  work  a  mischief  to  the 
cause  of  liberal  education  in  this  country  from 
which  it  will  not  readily  recover,  even  if  a  long 
time  be  allowed  for  the  recovery. 

I  hasten  at  once,  however,  to  say  that  prolonged 
scholastic  training  in  mathematics  and  in  the  ele- 
ments of  the  physical  and  natural  sciences  is  also 
a  necessary  part  of  a  truly  liberal  education. 


126  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

The  relation  in  which  mathematics  stands  to  the 
science  of  nature  is  somewhat  akin  to  that  in 
which  language  stands  to  literature.  In  a  true 
and  important  meaning  of  the  figure  of  speech, 
mathematics  gives  the  key  into  the  hand  of  him 
who  wishes  to  make  a  scientific  study  of  nature. 
The  man  who  is  to  have  any  education  whatever 
must  have  some  knowledge  of  mathematics ;  he 
must  know  enough  to  be  honest  and  accurate  in 
his  business  transactions,  if  he  wishes  to  exercise 
those  virtues.  To  conduct  well  many  forms  of 
business,  one  must  know  much  more  than  the  rudi- 
ments of  mathematics ;  while  the  successful  pur- 
suit of  certain  branches  of  mechanical  industry 
and  invention  requires  a  considerable  training  in 
this  branch  of  education.  But  it  is  for  a  certain 
amount  of  the  scholastic  study  of  mathematics,  as 
a  necessary  factor  in  a  liberal  education,  that  I  now 
plead.  Much  has  been  made,  by  the  advocates  of 
a  high  value  for  the  mental  training  that  comes 
through  this  form  of  study,  of  the  kind  of  close 
deductive  reasoning  which  it  employs.  Such  an 
estimate  is  partially  justified  ;  although  it  has,  I 
think,  very  often  been  exaggerated.  Of  more  edu- 
cational value  is  that  training  which  mathematics 
imparts  in  respect  of  quickness  of  insight  and  deft- 
ness of  handling  bestowed  upon  set  problems.  To 
enjoy,  and  to  be  skilful  in,  attacking  problems  is  a 
not  insignificant  attainment  for  any  educated  mind. 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        127 

For  is  not  life  one  prolonged  succession  of  prob- 
lems that  demand  to  be  solved  ?  To  be  sure,  most 
of  these  problems  are  not  of  the  mathematical 
order  and  do  not  admit  of  solution  by  the  methods 
of  mathematics.  But  it  is  a  thoroughly  good  thing 
for  a  man  not  to  be  a  coward  or  a  sluggard  when 
he  is  brought  face  to  face  with  any  hard  problem. 
The  truly  liberalizing  power  of  mathematics, 
however,  is  felt  only  when  two  things  are  attained. 
The  first  of  these  is  a  certain  amount  of  free  and 
joyful  movement  in  the  handling  of  mathematical 
symbols  and  formulae.  The  other  is  a  certain 
grasp  upon  the  beautiful  ideas  and  the  wonderful 
laws  which  are  represented  by  these  symbols  and 
formulae.  A  friend  of  mine,  who  stands  in  the  very 
front  rank  of  the  world's  great  mathematicians  (a 
rank  so  thin  that  two  men  could  probably  count  its 
numbers  on  the  fingers  of  their  two  hands),  has 
recently  declared  that  for  him  the  higher  mathe- 
matics is  chiefly  an  aesthetical  affair ;  and  that  no 
man  ought  to  study  it  who  does  not  rejoice  in  the 
beauty  of  the  ideas  with  which  it  deals.  Now,  of 
course,  it  cannot  be  maintained  that  such  very  high 
mathematics  shall  be  made  a  necessary  part  of  all 
liberal  culture.  But,  in  my  opinion,  it  is  desirable 
for  one  in  pursuit  of  this  culture  to  go  far  enough 
in  mathematics  to  get  some  glimpse  of  the  ideality, 
and  the  beautiful  ideality,  of  the  world  in  which 
mathematical  conceptions  reign  supreme. 


128  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

Moreover,  a  truly  liberal  education  implies  enough 
knowledge  of  mathematics  to  use  it  as  a  key  for 
getting  at  those  more  elementary  and  fundamental 
principles  upon  which  external  nature  is  built.  A 
knowledge  of  these  principles  is  itself  an  indispen- 
sable part  of  an  education.  The  extreme  advo- 
cates of  a  scientific,  as  distinguished  from  a  literary 
and  philosophical  culture,  are  accustomed  to  con- 
sider themselves  as  the  only  representatives  of  a 
really  modern  education.  And  it  is  undoubtedly 
true  that  natural  science  has  only  comparatively 
recently  begun  to  come  to  the  front  as  a  claimant 
of  rights  —  of  something  more  than  mere  bits  of 
tardily  granted  concessions.  These  advocates  too 
often  forget,  however,  that  this  is  because  natural 
science  is  itself  so  new,  and  is  still  so  compara- 
tively crude  and  ill  instructed  as  to  the  most  effec- 
tive methods  of  liberal  culture ;  is  even  so  doubtful 
as  to  the  actual  results  which  it  could  show  if  the 
higher  education  of  the  country  were  more  fully 
committed  to  its  hands.  For  here  again  it  is  sim- 
ple matter  of  fact  that  literature  and  philosophy 
were  brought  to  a  very  high  pitch  of  cultivation 
centuries  before  the  first  crude  beginnings  of  real 
natural  science  were  made.  It  is  true  also  that  the 
equipment  and  accredited  method  of  these  two- 
thirds  of  a  liberalizing  education  are  still  superior 
to  that  of  natural  science.  And  now  I  wish  I  might 
be  pardoned  (though  I  am  sure  I  shall  not  be)  for 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        129 

saying  that  the  products  hitherto  turned  out,  as  the 
results  of  too  exclusively  scientific  training,  do  not 
make  me  incline  to  trust  the  promise  of  substitut- 
ing in  this  way  something  satisfactory  for  the  more 
old-fashioned  curricula.  I  have  not  observed  that 
ihese  products  are  actually  men  of  a  truly  liberal 
mind. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  hold  most  firmly  to  the 
opinion  that  an  interest  in,  and  a  knowledge  of, 
nature  which  goes  beyond  that  of  a  man  who  has 
merely  the  lower  education,  is  a  necessary  factor 
in  a  truly  liberal  culture.  Especially  in  these  days 
it  seems  to  me  that  no  man  is  wholly  worthy  to 
hold  the  title  belonging  to  such  a  culture  who  has 
not  had  a  somewhat  prolonged  scholastic  training 
in  natural  science.  Here  again  I  make  deliberate 
use  of  the  singular  rather  than  of  the  plural  num- 
ber ;  and  I  have  said  a  training  in  "  science  "  rather 
than  in  the  sciences.  This  training  implies  such  a 
course  of  study  as  will  impart,  in  accordance  with 
the  average  capacity,  a  conception  of  what  is  now 
understood  by  the  term  "  science,"  and  of  the  recog- 
nized method  of  scientific  investigation,  so  far  at 
least  as  it  is  in  the  main  common  to  all  the  natural 
sciences. 

Undoubtedly,  the  larger  part  of  the  entire  body 
of  liberal  culture  will  always  consist  of  intelligent 
opinions  to  which  it  is  difiicult  to  give  a  truly  scien- 
tific form,  in  the  stricter  meaning  of   the  word 

9 


130  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

"  scientific."  Undoubtedly  also  —  to  repeat  the  re- 
mark of  a  colleague,  a  professor  of  physics  — 
"  most  of  the  advances  in  science  consist  in  cor- 
recting mistakes."  Notwithstanding  the  hardship 
which  would  be  involved  in  the  effort  to  draw  a 
fixed  line  between  the  region  where  opinion  dwells 
and  the  domain  ruled  over  by  science,  the  charac- 
acter  of  the  conception  to  which  the  latter  word 
answers  should  be  made  clear  to  every  educated 
mind.  How  often  does  one  meet  men  of  fine  liter- 
ary culture  who  still  show  no  little  bigotry,  and 
commit  not  a  few  important  mistakes,  because  they 
simply  do  not  know  what  science  really  is.  And 
again,  if  they  wanted  to  attain  knowledge  on  any 
subject  which  should  be  worthy  of  being  called 
scientific,  they  simply  do  not  know  how  to  go  to 
work ;  they  know  nothing  about  scientific  method 
in  the  investigation  of  any  subject. 

It  seems  to  me,  then,  especially  desirable  in  these 
days  that  the  somewhat  prolonged  scholastic  study 
of  natural  science  should  be  made  a  required  part  of 
every  liberal  education.  And  if  I  were  asked  that 
difficult  practical  question, "  How  much  ?"  I  should 
be  inclined  to  answer  :  "  Enough  to  give  the  student 
a  pretty  firm  grasp  on  those  fundamental  physical 
principles  upon  which  the  world  of  things  is  built, 
and  enough  of  the  pursuit  of  some  form  of  descrip- 
tive natural  science  to  impart  the  training  of  the 
powers  of  observation  and  the  habit  of  properly 


A  MODERX  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        131 

connecting  newly  observed  natural  objects  with 
groups  of  similar  objects  known  before."  I  find 
myself  disinclined  more  and  more,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  consider  liberally  educated,  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  and  the  needs  of  the  age,  any  man 
who  knows  nothing  certain  of  the  fundamental 
things  in  physics,  or  who  cannot  turn  a  trained  eye 
on  at  least  one  group  of  natural  objects  —  be  this 
group  stars  or  stones,  trees,  flowers,  ferns,  or  the 
human  body,  birds,  beetles,  the  animals  in  the  zoo- 
logical garden,  or  those  domesticated  in  the  city 
house  or  back-yard. 

I  am  also  quite  as  firmly  persuaded  that  a  some- 
what prolonged  study  of  the  human  soul  —  of 
logic,  psychology,  ethics,  and  of  those  problems 
which  have  formed  the  themes  of  reflective  think- 
ing since  man  first  began  really  to  think  at  all,  of 
philosophy,  that  is  to  say  —  is  a  necessary  part  of 
a  truly  liberal  education.  I  find  it  difficult  to 
understand  how  any  man  can  attain  the  genuine 
scholar's  liberal  mind,  who  takes  no  interest  in  the 
processes  and  laws  of  his  own  mental  and  moral 
life,  and  in  the  progress  and  laws  of  the  mental 
and  moral  lives  of  other  men.  If  I  were  to  argue 
in  detail  for  a  portion  of  these  studies  in  the  re- 
quired work  of  every  college  curriculum,  I  think  I 
could  show  how  close  is  the  relation  they  sustain  to 
the  most  successful  pursuit  of  every  other  kind  of 
studies.     Modern  psychology  is  certainly  making 


132  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

large  claims  and  rapid  advances,  in  the  direction 
of  proving  itself  an  indispensable  auxiliary  to  the 
entire  group  of  liberalizing  pursuits.  Certainly  no 
one  of  those  learned  professions,  including  the 
fourth  profession  of  teachers,  into  "which  the  great 
body  of  liberally  educated  youth  annually  pour 
themselves,  can  in  these  days  afford  to  neglect  the 
somewhat  prolonged  and  scholastic  study  of  the 
human  mind ;  of  the  four,  certainly  neither  the 
preacher  nor  the  teacher.  The  former  has  been 
traditionally  a  student  of  philosophy.  The  latter  is 
now  compelled,  even  by  the  authorities  in  charge 
of  our  higher  public  and  normal  schools,  to  know 
something,  in  appearance  at  least,  of  psychology. 
It  must  be  a  truly  humiliating  experience  for  a  col- 
lege graduate,  who  has  had  no  work  in  this  subject 
as  a  part  of  his  collegiate  education,  to  be  compelled 
to  sit  down  beside  the  girl  graduate  of  the  high- 
school  and  get  his  lesson  in  psychology. 

My  task  will  doubtless  be  hardest  of  all  when  I 
insist  on  some  philosophical  study  as  a  necessary 
part  of  a  truly  liberal  education.  Yet  in  my  own 
opinion  there  is  no  other  study  which  is  so  dis- 
tinctly liberalizing  as  philosophy.  Just  to  face 
these  profound  problems  concerning  the  being  of 
the  world ;  concerning  the  being,  the  origin,  and  the 
destiny  of  man ;  and  concerning  God  and  his  re- 
lations to  the  world  and  man's  relation  to  him; 
just  to  know  that  there  are  such  problems,  and 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        133 

what  they  are,  and  something  of  how  the  soul  of 
man  has  in  thought  and  feeling  responded  to  them, 
is  of  itself  no  small  part  of  a  liberal  culture.  And 
here  I  speak,  not  from  theory  alone,  but  from  ex- 
perience with  several  thousand  pupils.  I  afl&rm 
without  hesitation,  on  the  basis  of  this  experience, 
that  it  does  make  the  mind  more  liberal,  more 
serious,  gentle,  interesting,  cultured,  and  vigorous, 
to  have  some  face-to-face  acquaintance  with  the 
principal  problems  of  philosophy.  As  a  cure  of 
souls  afflicted  with  those  shallow  and  coarse  views 
of  life,  and  of  its  most  profound,  most  mysterious 
realities,  which  dominate  the  age  and  the  land, 
there  is  nothing  superior  to  this  which  I  could  rec- 
ommend. It  is  true  pastoral  and  soul-saving  work 
to  induct  youth,  who  are  in  process  of  the  higher 
education,  into  the  calm  and  reasonable  considera- 
tion of  these  problems. 

These,  then,  as  it  seems  to  me,  are  still  the 
essentials  of  a  truly  liberal  education,  —  now,  as 
they  have  always  been  to  some  extent  ever  since 
the  conception  and  practice  corresponding  to  the 
phrase  a  "  liberal  education"  emerged  in  the  life 
of  the  race.  An  appeal  to  the  history  of  education 
would  show  that  the  more  ancient  authorities,  as 
well  as  the  reformers  of  education  on  the  hither 
edge  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  most  trustworthy 
writers  on  pedagogics  in  modern  times,  are  in  sub- 
stantial agreement.     The  chief  differences  of  opin- 


134  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

ion  are  differences  as  to  proportionate  values,  as  to 
methods  and  lengths  of  time,  rather  than  as  to  the 
essentials  of  the  higher  scholastic  training. 

But  now,  very  briefly,  I  wish  to  indicate  my 
opinion  as  to  how  the  emphasis  should  be  laid 
upon  the  word  "  modern "  in  the  theme  we  are 
examining.  What  changes  are  desirable  in  the 
course  of  scholastic  training  to  make  it  better 
accord  with  the  modern  spirit  and  the  modern 
needs  ?  For  in  spite  of  any  seeming  of  extreme 
conservatism  which  the  opinions  thus  far  ex- 
pressed may  have  had,  I  am  a  pronounced  ad- 
vocate of  modernizing  the  curriculum  of  our 
liberal  education.  I  do  not  believe,  however,  that 
the  best  way  of  accomplishing  this  involves  either 
any  further  extension  of  the  elective  system  in 
our  American  colleges,  or  the  exclusion  from 
their  required  courses  of  any  of  the  essentials  of 
such  an  education. 

On  the  other  hand,  our  efforts  should  be  di- 
rected toward  meeting  the  increased  and  altered 
demands  of  the  age,  in  the  following  ways.  Some 
readjustment  of  proportions  is  plainly  required  in 
order  better  to  adapt  the  college  curriculum  to 
these  demands.  It  is  not  at  all  certain  that  any 
ultimate  diminution  is  required  in  the  actual 
amount  of  work  now  done  in  either  of  these  three 
great  branches  of  scholastic  training  by  even  the 
most    exacting     of     our    collegiate     institutions. 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        135 

"Within  these  institutions  the  relative  —  but  not 
necessarily  the  absolute  —  amount  of  training  in 
mathematics  and  in  the  classical  languages  will 
probably  be  lessened ;  while  the  amount  of  train- 
ing given  in  natural  science,  and  the  acquirement 
of  the  modern  languages  so  far  as  is  necessary 
to  a  possible  familiarity  with  the  French  and 
German  literatures  will  be  increased.  The  way 
to  solve  such  a  seeming  paradox  is,  I  think,  stead- 
ily to  improve  our  facilities  and  effectiveness  in 
the  teaching  which  precedes  admission  to  college 
as  well  as  during  the  college  course.  The  ten 
years  from  six  to  sixteen  are  enough,  and  more 
than  enough,  to  prepare  the  average  mind  for  the 
most  exacting  of  our  American  colleges.  But 
alas !  how  much  of  this  time  is  wasted,  and  worse 
than  merely  wasted,  by  the  poor  teaching  that 
prevails  in  the  intermediate  schools. 

Now  the  men  and  women  who  have  a  truly 
liberal  education  must  somehow  sweep  away  these 
evils  which  lie  lower  down ;  and  this  as  the  best 
manner  of  clearing  the  ground  for  a  progressive 
improvement  in  the  adjustment  of  later  studies  to 
the  modern  changes  of  educational  values.  But 
if,  in  making  this  adjustment,  we  relax  our  hold 
upon  what  we  know,  by  centuries  of  experience, 
to  have  a  high  degree  of  such  value,  and  then 
prematurely  substitute  —  especially  if  we  do  so 
wholly  at  the  option  of  the  pupil  —  a  large  amount 


136  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

of  that  whose  value  is  as  yet  less  a  matter  of 
long  experience,  I  fear  we  shall  not  really  raise 
our  standard  of  liberal  education.  Practically, 
then,  I  think  that,  as  fast  as  college  time  is  set 
free  by  improvement  in  the  preparatory  education, 
that  time  should  for  the  present  needs  be  largely 
turned  over  to  required  work  in  natural  science 
and  in  the  modern  languages.  In  this  way  it 
probably  will  not  take  long  to  bring  about  a  more 
satisfactory  adjustment  of  proportions  among  the 
three  essentials  of  a  modern  liberal  education. 

Second:  The  education  at  which  the  college 
aims  should  meet  the  demands  of  the  age  by  the 
fullest  possible  use  of  modern  equipments  and  of 
modern  methods.  It  is  surprising  how  much  of 
the  objection  urged  against  the  required  study  of 
the  classical  languages  is  really  based  on  the  sup- 
position that  methods  of  teaching  them  now 
almost  obsolete  still  prevail.  The  same  thing  is 
also  true  of  the  objections  urged  against  the  study 
of  psychology,  of  ethics,  and  of  philosophy  as 
essentials  of  a  liberal  education.  Looking  back 
to  the  time  when  I  was  in  college,  I  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  saying  that  the  teaching  of  these 
languages  was,  as  respects  the  interest  and  effect- 
iveness of  its  methods,  on  the  whole  superior  to 
the  teaching  of  mathematics  and  the  natural 
sciences.  But  what  a  change  has  really  taken 
place  since  then  in  the  methods  employed  by  both 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        137 

these  classes  of  scholastic  pursuits  !  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  that,  on  the  whole,  the  improvement  of 
the  methods  of  teaching  Latin  and  Greek  has  been 
quite  as  marked  as  that  made  by  the  teachers  of 
the  natural  sciences. 

As  to  psychology  and  philosophy,  whenever 
these  subjects  are  in  the  hands  of  men  who  have 
themselves  received  a  thorough  modern  training, 
the  same  claim  can  be  established.  Unfortunately, 
however,  the  impression  still  prevails  widely  that 
any  one  can  teach  psychology,  ethics,  and  philosophy 
who  can  read  in  advance  of  his  pupils  a  text-book 
on  these  subjects  —  especially  if  he  happens  to 
have  had  training  in  a  peculiar  set  of  prejudices 
by  having  been  a  student  of  theology. 

But  in  all  three  groups  of  essentials  —  in  lan- 
guage and  literature,  in  mathematics  and  natural 
science,  and  in  psychology  and  philosophy  —  the 
present  generation  has  seen  more  advances  in 
equipment  and  in  method  than  all  the  rest  of  the 
world's  past  history.  What  is  chiefly  needed,  in 
order  properly  to  modernize  our  liberal  culture,  is 
the  possession  of  this  equipment  in  the  hands  of 
men  who  know  how  to  use  it.  Here  I  am  tempted 
to  make  a  side  remark  which  has  an  important 
bearing  on  all  higher  educational  development  in 
this  country.  The  conduct  of  many  educational 
institutions  and  the  estimate  placed  upon  them 
by  the  American  public  are  such  as  to  depreciate 


138  THE  HIGHER  EDUCATION 

the  teaching  functions.  But  in  time  it  will  be 
discovered  here  —  a  truth  already  better  recognized 
in  France  and  in  Germany  —  that  it  is  the  charac- 
ter of  its  faculty  which  chiefly  determines  the 
rank  to  be  allotted  to  any  educational  institution. 
Money  and  all  that  money  will  buy  —  immense 
sums  of  money  and  incredible  extensions  of  equip- 
ment—  are  a  necessity  for  the  most  successful 
promotion  of  liberal  culture.  But,  after  all,  these 
things  and  all  mere  things  are  subordinate  to  the 
man  who  knows  how  to  employ  them  so  as  to 
develop  in  his  pupils  the  truly  liberal  mind.  And 
if  he  is  himself  illiberal,  a  bigot,  —  whether  his 
bigotry  be  that  of  the  philologue,  or  that  of  the 
economist,  or  that  of  the  "  scientist,"  or  that  of  the 
advocate  of  the  new  psychology,  —  the  teacher 
may  have  boundless  fame  as  a  specialist,  and  un- 
limited enthusiasm  for  his  specialty,  but  he  is  not 
wholly  fit  to  take  part  in  the  bestowal  of  a  truly 
liberal  education.  Never  before  was  the  need  so 
great  that  the  teacher  should  himself  be  a  man  of 
the  widest  intellectual  interests  and  sympathies, 
and  of  the  broadest  culture. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  the  changes  in  studies 
which  appear  to  me  necessary  to  meet  the  changes 
in  the  demands  made  upon  the  educated  man  are 
not  to  be  sought  in  the  character  of  these  studies 
so  much  as  in  the  proportions  of  each  and  in  the 
method  of  pursuing  them.    These  changes  I  believe 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        139 

should  be  in  the  main  determined  by  those  who 
have  their  education  in  charge,  rather  than  by  the 
choice  of  those  who  are  in  process  of  being 
educated. 

But  beyond  the  liberal  culture  given  to  the 
average  college-bred  man,  and  higher  up,  lies  the 
sphere  of  the  specialist  who  puts  his  highly  special- 
ized pursuits  upon  the  basis  of  a  broad  and  well- 
proportioned  more  general  education.  He  who 
rises  into,  and  remains  long  enough  within,  that 
sphere  becomes  one  of  the  few  most  nobly  and 
highly  cultured.  He  is  the  liberally  educated 
specialist,  —  a  man  quite  superior,  in  respect  of 
education,  both  to  the  specialist  who  has  no 
thorough  liberal  education  and  also  to  the  man 
who,  having  the  fundamentals  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, has  not  also  the  special  attainments  of  a 
master  of  some  one  subject. 

I  close  the  presentation  of  my  opinions  on  this 
theme  with  a  remark  calling  attention  to  its  great 
practical  importance  in  the  near  future  of  our 
country.  We  are  all  familiar  with  the  often  re- 
peated thought  that  our  national  destiny  is  closely 
bound  up  with  the  education  of  the  multitude  of 
the  citizens.  This  thought  is,  of  course,  true  ;  and 
the  significance  of  its  truth  may  reasonably  make 
all  patriots  serious  ;  for  the  condition  of  the  public 
education  in  the  United  States  is  very  far  indeed 
from  satisfactory  at  the  present  time.     Taking  all 


140  THE  HIGHER   EDUCATION 

sections  of  the  nation  into  tlie  account,  we  are  an 
illiterate  nation.  And  under  political  and  selfish 
business  influences,  even  in  the  best  section  of  the 
nation,  there  is  much  in  our  educational  condition 
to  cause  shame  and  alarm. 

But  it  is  not  the  condition  of  public  education, 
not  the  character  and  amount  of  training  which 
the  state  undertakes  to  provide  for  every  citizen, 
that  is  the  subject  of  my  present  inquiry  and  so- 
licitude. There  is  another  truth  respecting  the 
relations  of  education  to  the  public  welfare,  which, 
if  less  obvious,  is  no  less  important.  The  destiny 
of  any  nation  is  dependent  on  the  character  of  its 
aristocracy ;  and  the  character  of  the  aristocracy 
is  dependent  upon  the  kind  of  education  which 
this  aristocracy  enjoys.  I  know  that  there  is  some- 
thing which  sounds  unrepublican  and  un-Ameri- 
can, in  our  ears,  about  such  a  declaration  as  this. 
But  I  should  undertake  to  show  from  history  that 
the  welfare  of  any  nation  is  quite  as  really  depen- 
dent upon  the  character  of  its  clergy,  its  lawyers, 
its  doctors,  its  teachers,  and  the  classes  that  have 
leisure,  social  standing,  and  wealth  as  upon  the 
character  of  the  so-called  common  people.  I  know 
you  will  remind  me  that  the  most  liberal  culture 
will  not  make  the  so-called  "  upper  "  classes  good, 
or  furnish  true  friends  and  trusted  leaders  of  the 
people.  But  neither  does  a  so-called  common- 
school  education  make  the  common  people  good. 


A  MODERN  LIBERAL  EDUCATION        141 

Only  as  education  enters  into  the  sphere  of  the 
ethical,  assthetical,  and  religious  life  does  it  be- 
come a  real  safeguard  of  either  the  aristocracy  or 
the  multitude  of  the  citizens.  But  it  is  just  the 
peculiar  potency  of  the  truly  liberal  education  that 
it  can  lay  so  much  emphasis  upon  what  is  not 
merely  necessary  to  live  as  a  smart  and  successful 
citizen,  but  is  rather  necessary  in  order  to  enter 
into  and  possess  the  larger,  richer,  and  higher 
life  of  the  soul. 

There  is  one  other  consideration  which  it  seems 
desirable  to  connect  with  this  subject.  Rightly  or 
wrongly,  temporarily  or  permanently,  there  exists 
a  widespread  lack  of  confidence  in  representative 
government.  Here  in  this  country,  where  the 
powers  of  the  representative  bodies,  both  in  the 
state  and  in  the  nation,  are  more  extensive  and 
unlimited  for  good  or  for  evil  than  anywhere  else 
in  the  world,  this  distrust  is  perhaps  most  strong 
and  most  on  the  increase.  The  simple  truth  is 
that  no  class,  neither  the  so-called  laboring  class 
nor  the  cultivated  class,  has  any  large  amount  of 
confidence  left  in  the  men  who  make  laws  for 
them  all.  Municipal,  state,  and  national  legislative 
bodies  are  almost  universally  distrusted,  feared, 
and  despised.  This  is  a  fact,  whether  it  is  a  fact 
that  admits  of  rational  justification  or  not. 

There  are  plain  signs  that  some  form  of  virtual 
aristocratic  government  is  likely  to  be  widely  es- 


142  THE   HIGHER  EDUCATION 

tablished  in  reaction  from  the  extreme  evils  of 
democracy,  —  a  rule  of  the  best^  in  some  meaning 
of  the  word  "  best."  But  shall  it  be  the  man 
"  best "  to  lead  the  populace  by  deceiving  them,  as 
the  self-deceived  or  shrewdly  hypocritical  dema- 
gague  has  done  so  frequently  in  the  past  history 
of  governments  ?  Or  shall  it  be  the  man,  or  the 
corporation,  or  the  syndicate,  whose  length  of  purse 
and  elasticity  of  conscience  best  stand  the  drain 
upon  it  made  by  the  demands  of  the  law-makers ; 
shall  it  be  the  rule,  by  bribery,  of  the  plutocracy  ? 
Or  shall  it  be  the  rule  of  the  men  of  liberal  minds, 
of  minds  set  free  from  bonds  of  prejudice  and  of  av- 
arice, and  well  acquainted  with  those  laws  of  nature 
and  of  the  soul,  of  man  as  a  thinking,  speaking, 
social,  and  religious  being,  which  it  is  the  business 
of  a  liberal  education  to  impart  ?  I  sincerely  hope 
that  our  really  governing  aristocracy  in  the  country 
will  be  of  this  third  class.  And  it  is  in  the  fitting 
of  this  class  for  the  life  which  lies  before  them  as 
the  genuine  aristocrats  that  the  supreme  value  of 
a  truly  liberal  education  consists. 


THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  WORKS 

OF 

George  Trumbull  Ladd 

Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Yale  University 


Primer  of  Psychology. 

By  QEORQE  TRUHBULL  LADD,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Yale 
University.     i2mo,  $i.oo  net. 

This  work  is  in  no  sense  a  condensation  of  any  larger  work, 
but  has  been  prepared  by  the  author  expressly  for  the  use  of 
elementary  classes  in  schools  and  colleges.  The  need  for  such 
a  book  has  been  great,  and  coming  as  it  does  from  the  mas- 
terly hand  of  this  eminent  author,  its  value  will  be  at  once 
recognized. 


Psychology:    Descriptive   and    Explanatory. 

A  Treatise  of  the  Phenomena,  Laws,  and  Development  of  Human 
Mental  Life.  By  GEORQE  TRUMBULL  LADD,  Professor  of  Phil- 
osophy in  Yale  University.     8vo,  $4.50. 

The  book  is  designed  to  cover  the  entire  ground  of  descrip- 
tive and  explanatory  psychology  in  a  summary  way,  reserving 
speculative  discussion  and  the  philosophy  of  mind  for  another 
volume.  It  is  carefully  adapted  to  the  needs  of  pupils  and 
teachers,  while  not  exclusively  prepared  for  them. 

The  point  of  view  taken  leads  the  author  into  an  analysis  of 
all  the  mental  processes,  but  especially  into  the  endeavor  to 
trace  the  development  of  mental  life,  the  formation  and  growth 
of  so-called  "  faculty,"  and  the  attainment  of  knowledge  and 
of  character. 

"  I  know  of  no  other  work  that  gives  so  good  a  critical  survey  of  the  whole 
field  as  this." — Prof.  B.  P.  Bowne,  Boston  University. 

"  Any  writing  of  his  is  a  matter  to  be  grateful  for.  This  book  will  largely 
increase  our  debt." — Prof.  G.  H.  Palmer,  Harvard  University. 


Elements  of  Physiological   Psychology. 

A  Treatise  of  the  Activities  and  Nature  of  the  Mind  from  the 
Physical  and  Experimental  Point  of  View.  By  QEORQE  TRUM- 
BULL LADD,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Yale  University.  8vo, 
$4 'SO. 

This  is  the  first  treatise  that  has  attempted  to  present  to 
English  readers  a  discussion  of  the  whole  subject  brought  down 
to  the  most  recent  times.  It  includes  the  latest  discoveries, 
and  by  numerous  and  excellent  illustrations  and  tables  and  by 
gathering  material  from  scores  and  even  hundreds  of  separate 
treatises  inaccessible  to  most  persons  it  brings  before  the  reader 
in  a  compact  and  yet  lucid  form  the  entire  subject. 

The  work  has  three  principal  divisions  of  which  the  first 
consists  of  a  description  of  the  structure  and  functions  of  the 
Nervous  System  considered  simply  under  the  conception  of 
mechanism  without  reference  to  the  phenomena  of  conscious- 
ness. The  second  part  describes  the  various  classes  of  corre- 
lations which  exist  between  the  phenomena  of  the  nervous 
mechanism  and  mental  phenomena,  with  an  attempt  to  state 
what  is  known  of  the  laws  which  maintain  themselves  over 
these  various  classes.  The  third  part  introduces,  at  the  close 
of  these  researches,  the  presentation  of  such  conclusions  as 
may  be  legitimately  gathered  or  more  speculatively  inferred 
concerning  the  nature  of  the  human  mind. 

"  Professor  Ladd  deserves  warm  thanks  for  undertaking  the  preparation  of 
such  a  work." — Mind. 

"  He  writes  at  once  as  a  scientist  bent  on  gaining  the  fullest  and  clearest 
insight  into  the  phenomena  of  mind,  and  as  a  metaphysician  deeply  concerned 
with  the  sublime  question  of  the  nature  of  the  spiritual  substance-" 

—James  Sully  in  The  Academy. 

"  Well  written,  in  excellent  tone  and  temper,  in  clear,  even  style,  free  from 
needless  technicalities,  and  with  due  regard  to  the  necessary  difference  be- 
tween mere  speculation  or  surmises  and  established  facts." 

— JVew  York  Times. 

"  This  admirable  work  by  Professor  Ladd  deserves  a  hearty  welcome  from 
the  English  public  as  the  first  book  of  sufficient  extent  of  subject  matter  and 
depth  of  thought  to  take  the  place  in  American  and  English  literature  that  has 
been  held  since  1874  in  both  Germany  and  France  by  Wundt's  '  Griindszuge 
der  Physiologischen  Psycholog^e.'  " — Westminster  Review. 

"  His  erudition  and  his  broad-mindedness  are  on  a  par  with  each  other; 
and  his  volume  will  probably,  for  many  years  to  come,  be  the  standard  work 
of  referoace  on  the  subject."— Prof.  Wiluam  Jambs  in  The  Nation, 


Outlines    of   Physiological    Psychology. 

A  Text-book  of  flental  Science  for  Academies  and  Colleges.  By 
aeORQE  TRUHBULL  LADD,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Yale 
University.    Crown  8vo,  $a.oo. 

The  volume  is  not  an  abridgment  or  revision  of  the  larger 
book,  Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology,  which  is  still  to  be 
preferred  for  mature  students,  but,  like  it,  surveys  the  entire 
field,  though  with  less  details  and  references  that  might  embar- 
rass beginners.  Briefer  discussions  of  the  nervous  mechanism, 
and  of  the  nature  of  the  mind  as  related  to  the  body,  will  be 
found  in  the  "Outlines";  while  the  treatment  of  relations 
existing  between  excited  organs  and  mental  phenomena  offers 
much  new  material,  especially  on  "Consciousness,"  "Memory," 
and  "  Will." 

Later  chapters,  considering  mind  and  body  as  dependent 
upon  differences  of  age,  sex,  race,  etc.,  and  giving  conclusions 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  mind  and  as  to  its  connection  with  the 
bodily  organism,  reward  the  student  who  masters  this  book. 

The  author  aims  to  furnish  a  complete  yet  correct  text-book 
for  the  brief  study  of  mental  phenomena  from  the  experimental 
and  physiological  point  of  view.  Both  pupil  and  teacher  have 
been  considered,  that  the  book  may  be  readily  learned  and 
successfully  taught. 

"  I  think  it  an  honor  to  American  science  and  scholarship  tiiat  the  best 
English  books  on  physiological  psychology  should  come  from  an  American 
university."— J.  McK.  Cattell,  University  of  Pennsylvania. 

"As  an  introduction  to  the  study  of  physiological  psychology  it  is  abso- 
lutely without  a  rival." — H.  N.  Gardiner,  Smith  College. 

"  For  its  purpose  there  is  not  a  better  text-book  in  the  language." 

—  The  Nation. 
"  The  account  he  gives  is  a  succinct  and  clear  digest  of  the  subject,  and  the 
illustrations  leave  nothing  to  be  desired." — The  British  Medical  Journal. 

"  An  important  contribution  to  the  experimental  and  physiological  study  of 
mental  phenomena." — Glasgow  Herald. 

"  Professor  Ladd,  in  giving  to  the  world  his  '  Outlines  of  Physiological 
Psychology,'  has  reared  a  monument  that  marks  a  decided  advance  in  the 
American  literature  of  physiological  philosophy.    It  will  be  a  standard  work." 

— Boston  Times. 
"  For  lucidity  of  statement  and  comprehensiveness  of  treatment  within 
moderate  limits,  Professor  Ladd's  '  Outlines '  is,  we  believe,  unsurpassed." 

— Educational  Journal  of  Canada, 


Introduction  to  Philosophy. 

An  Inquiry  after  a  Rational  System  of  Scientific  Principles  in 
their  Relation  to  Ultimate  Reality.  By  QEORGE  TRUMBULL 
LADD,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  Yale  University.     8vo,  $3.00. 

The  hope  of  the  author,  as  expressed  in  the  Preface  and 
incorporated  in  the  title,  is  that  this  book  may  serve  to 
"introduce"  some  of   its  readers  to  the  study  of  philosophy. 

Among  those  for  whom  it  is  intended  may  be  first  men- 
tioned the  young  in  the  later  years  of  our  higher  educational 
institutions.  It  is,  however,  not  a  technical  book  for  instruc- 
tion, such  being,  in  the  opinion  of  the  author,  unbecoming  a 
study  of  problems  which  invite  reflection  and  end  in  opinion. 
But  there  are  others  who  share  in  the  general  pursuit  after  a 
knowledge  of  philosophical  questions.  None  who  are  thought- 
ful escape  the  mysteries  of  which  life  itself  is  made  up,  and  to 
all  earnest  inquirers  the  book  appeals  especially.  The  language 
has  been  simplified  to  the  utmost,  though  the  questions  are  of 
such  nature  that  new  terms  and  unfamiliar  language  sometimes 
occur  of  necessity,  yet  all  is  found  to  be  intelligible  and  clearly 
stated.  Finally  it  may  be  said  that  the  author  has  not  left 
himself  entirely  concealed  in  the  treatment  of  the  subject.  He 
modestly  makes  the  confession  that  his  own  views,  to  an  extent 
positive  as  well  as  critical,  appear  in  the  pages,  and  to  the 
public  this  makes  the  book  of  double  value  and  interest. 

CONTENTS:    The  Source  of   Philosophy  and  its  Problems  —  Relation  of 
Philosophy  to  the  Particular  Sciences  —  Psychology  and  Philosophy — 
The  Spirit  and  the  Method  of  Philosophy — Dogmatism,^Skepticism,  and 
Criticism — The  Divisions  of  Philosophy— The  Theory  of  Knowledge — 
Metaphysics — Philosophy  of  Nature  and  Philosophy  of  Mind — Ethics — 
^Esthetics  —  Philosophy    of    Religion  —  Tendencies    and    Schools    in 
Philosophy. 
"  The  study  of  his  book  will  be  a  discipline  in  shrewd  and  portrayed  rea- 
soning, and  open  up  a  world  of  ideas  that  will  add  scope  and  enjoyment  to  the 
student's  mind.    We  give  it  our  unqualified  endorsement." 

—  The  Quarterly  Review. 
"  In  all  its  aspects  we  are  sure  Professor  Ladd's  work  will  be  welcomed." 

— Herald  and  Presbyter. 
"The  entire  discussion  is  fresh,  candid,  and  able.    It  is  not  only  an  intro- 
duction, it  is  also  a  contribution  to  philosophy." 

— Post-Graduate  Wooster  Quarterly. 


CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS,    Publishers, 
*53°»57  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 


11 

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